Soft Robotics: The Journey Thus Far and the Challenges Ahead [TC Spotlight]

Abstract

In the past decade, the use of soft, deformable materials has gained widespread interest due to their potential to carry out tasks in unstructured environments, such as grasping or manipulating objects with a wide variety of shapes and sizes, locomotion in irregular terrains, and enabling safe and flexible interactions between humans and robots. This emerging research field, generally known as soft robotics, also pushes the boundaries of visionary research topics, such as self-growing and self-healing robotic systems.