Thomas C. Underwood

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About

Thomas C. Underwood is a leading figure in soft robotics, with a core focus on the design and fabrication of pneumatic circuits that enable autonomous, untethered soft machines. His major contribution lies in addressing the critical bottleneck of scalability: as soft logic circuits grow in complexity, manual design and assembly become error-prone and inefficient. Underwood’s landmark work, “The Soft Compiler” (2022, 20+ citations), introduced a web-based tool that automates the design of modular pneumatic circuits from individual soft logic gates. By mathematically optimizing circuit layouts and minimizing wiring errors, this tool dramatically accelerates the prototyping of sophisticated soft controllers—a foundational step toward fully autonomous soft robots. His research bridges computer-aided design and soft matter engineering, making complex pneumatic logic accessible to non-specialists. Underwood’s impact is evident in the growing adoption of his compiler in labs worldwide, and his work has been recognized for its potential to democratize soft robotics design. For students and researchers, Underwood exemplifies how computational tools can unlock the next generation of resilient, low-cost, and intelligent soft robotic systems.