Soft Robots Making Their Way into Industrial Applications
A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825). This special issue belongs to the section "Actuators for Robotics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 June 2023) | Viewed by 2072
Special Issue Editors
2. Intelligent Robotics & Autonomous Systems Co (iR@SC), RA Engineering, Shellharbour, NSW 2529, Australia
Interests: soft robotics; soft actuators; soft haptics; biomechatronics; wearable technologies; 3D printing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: fluid power control; intelligent systems and control; mechatronics; soft actuators and robots; robot control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: intelligent agriculture; system integration; fluid power control; robot design
Interests: artificial intelligence; machine learning; cyber security; cyber physical systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Soft robotic technologies are paving the way toward robotic abilities which are vital for a wide range of applications, including manufacturing, manipulation, gripping, human–machine interaction, locomotion, wearable technologies and many more. These also offer soft robotics wide application prospects in the fields of industrial production, defense military, medical, exploration with integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Soft robots are of notable interest because, unlike their rigid counterparts, they can easily deform while remaining mechanically resilient, and are able to adapt to the outer environment without harm to humans, providing necessary force as actuators and/or obtain vital signals as sensors.
An essential component in a soft robot is the soft actuator which provides the system with a deformable body and allows it to interact with the environment to achieve a desired actuation pattern, such as locomotion. As a result, soft actuators that respond to various stimuli and show large deformations in addition to mechanical resilience are crucial. These would be particularly promising for application in artificial muscles, microrobots, and micro-manipulators. Soft sensing means are also another branch of soft robotics with great potential in robotic applications, such as wearables to monitor biosignals while residing dynamically on diverse surfaces.
This Special Issue focuses on recent frontier studies of soft robotics as potential and/or readily available candidates for industrial applications in advanced manufacturing, healthcare, food and beverage handling, entertainment, logistics and construction. Some of these applications include, but are not limited to, novel surgical tools (i.e., in minimally invasive surgery), soft grippers (i.e., in food handling, packaging, agricultural harvesting, soft human tissue handling), exoskeletons (i.e., in rehabilitation, as assistive in logistic wearables, medical, defense and construction), soft haptics (i.e., in teleoperation, e-commerce, gaming along with AR/VR/MR, IOT, rehabilitation) and many more, which creates another challenge to securely manage the data collected.
This Special Issue aims to shed light on the challenges in the of development of “softer and smarter” robotic systems to meet industrial demands which may be integrated with IoT and AI-based technologies towards Industry 5.0.
Dr. Rahim Mutlu
Dr. Lian-Wang Lee
Dr. Hao-Ting Lin
Dr. Manoj Kumar
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- soft robots
- soft actuators
- soft sensors
- artificial muscles
- human-robot interaction
- soft/flexible materials and structures
- locomotion and exploration
- assistive and/or rehabilitation soft robots
- smart materials for soft robotics
- wearables
- exoskeletons
- medical robotics
- internet of things
- artificial intelligence
- machine learning
- security in robotics/cyber-physical system
