Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Shunsuke Yoshimoto is pioneering the next generation of soft robotics through groundbreaking work in tactile sensing and electrostatic actuation. His research centers on two transformative areas: tomographic tactile sensors that image contact pressure through resistive coupling, and high-performance electrostatic film motors that mimic biological muscle. Yoshimoto’s most impactful contribution is the design of a high-performance tomographic tactile sensor (2024, 7 citations), which manipulates detector conductivity to achieve unprecedented sensitivity for soft robots, human–machine interfaces, and wearable electronics. He also developed a novel unobtrusive tactile sensing method (2015, 4 citations) that estimates force and contact position on arbitrary shapes without mechanical obstruction—a critical advance for medical and robotic applications. In actuation, Yoshimoto created a multi-layer electrostatic film motor (2022, 4 citations) that overcomes the nonlinearity and control challenges plaguing traditional artificial muscles, offering fine controllability alongside flexibility. His adaptive potential scanning technique (2020, 4 citations) further enhances tomographic sensors with switchable spatio-temporal resolution, enabling more versatile object recognition and human interaction. With recent work on stabilizing bipedal mechanisms using control moment gyroscopes (2023), Yoshimoto continues to push the boundaries of what soft, electrically-driven robots can achieve.