Smart Soft Robotics: Design, Control and Applications

A special issue of Applied System Innovation (ISSN 2571-5577).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 3611

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Research Centre for Medical Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgical Devices, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
Interests: soft robotics; bioinspired robotics; smart materials; dielectric elastomer actuators; nonlinear dynamics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Research Centre for Medical Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgical Devices, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
Interests: soft robotics; medical robotics; smart materials; dielectric elastomer actuators
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Research Centre for Medical Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgical Devices, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China
Interests: microrobotics; soft robotics; biohybrid materials; magnetic control; 3D nanofabrication

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last decade, we have witnessed the booming development of soft robotics—a fascinating research field that fuses material sciences, robotics and biology to create new types of robots that enhance human-robot interaction, agility and adaptability. In natural environments with complex uncertainties and human-centric operations with strict safety requirements, soft robots can be a promising alternative to rigid robots because they can easily squeeze through confined spaces; manipulate objects of varying shapes and sizes; and deform and absorb most of the collision energy in impacts for better safety.

We also need to realize that the field of soft robotics is still faced with a set of key challenges. These include achieving the efficient actuation of soft actuators for more efficient robotic locomotion and untethered operation; overcoming the rich nonlinearity in soft materials to realize precise and reliable control; and developing novel applications for soft robotics that exhibit their true advantages and potentials (e.g., in extreme environments or in vivo); among others.

This Special Issue will be devoted to state-of-the-art research on smart soft robotics, including soft robot designs, controls and their applications. We seek submissions with original perspectives and advanced thinking on the theme addressed.

In particular, the topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Design of soft robots;
  • Modelling of soft robots;
  • Control of soft robots;
  • Sensing of soft robots;
  • Materials of soft robots;
  • Artificial intelligence for soft robots;
  • Micro/nano soft robots;
  • Soft robotic applications.

Dr. Chongjing Cao
Prof. Dr. Xing Gao
Dr. Haifeng Xu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied System Innovation is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soft robotics
  • soft actuators
  • smart materials
  • control of soft robots
  • soft robotics applications

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

11 pages, 6284 KiB  
Article
The Enhanced Adaptive Grasping of a Soft Robotic Gripper Using Rigid Supports
by Zhikang Peng, Dongli Liu, Xiaoyun Song, Meihua Wang, Yiwen Rao, Yanjie Guo and Jun Peng
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2024, 7(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/asi7010015 - 12 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1299
Abstract
Soft pneumatic grippers can grasp soft or irregularly shaped objects, indicating potential applications in industry, agriculture, and healthcare. However, soft grippers rarely carry heavy and dense objects due to the intrinsic low modulus of soft materials in nature. This paper designed a soft [...] Read more.
Soft pneumatic grippers can grasp soft or irregularly shaped objects, indicating potential applications in industry, agriculture, and healthcare. However, soft grippers rarely carry heavy and dense objects due to the intrinsic low modulus of soft materials in nature. This paper designed a soft robotic gripper with rigid supports to enhance lifting force by 150 ± 20% in comparison with that of the same gripper without supports, which successfully lifted a metallic wrench (672 g). The soft gripper also achieves excellent adaptivity for irregularly shaped objects. The design, fabrication, and performance of soft grippers with rigid supports are discussed in this paper. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Soft Robotics: Design, Control and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 3282 KiB  
Article
Nonlinear Dynamics of a Resonant-Impact Dielectric Elastomer Actuator
by Chuang Wu, Anjiang Cai, Xing Gao and Chongjing Cao
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5(6), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/asi5060122 - 05 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1594
Abstract
In recent years, with the rapid development of soft robots, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) as a novel type of soft actuators have been widely studied. However, DEAs often suffer from low instantaneous output force/power, especially in high payload damping conditions, which limits their [...] Read more.
In recent years, with the rapid development of soft robots, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) as a novel type of soft actuators have been widely studied. However, DEAs often suffer from low instantaneous output force/power, especially in high payload damping conditions, which limits their applications in certain scenarios. Inspired by the vibro-impact mechanisms found in many engineering systems (e.g., pile driving and percussive drilling), a resonant-impact DEA system was proposed in the authors’ previous work to potentially address this limitation. However, due to the complex nonlinearities and unique electromechanically coupled forcing mechanism of DEAs, no nonlinear dynamic model was developed to perform systematic investigations and optimization. In this paper, a nonlinear dynamic model of the resonant-impact DEA system is developed by considering multiple nonlinearities, viscoelasticity, and electromechanical coupling. Using both a numerical model and extensive experiments, the nonlinear dynamics of the resonant-impact DEA system are studied in depth. The effects of several key parameters, including excitation voltage amplitude, constraint gap, constraint stiffness, and number of DEA layers, on the dynamic response of the system are characterized. The findings reported in this paper can provide guidance for the performance optimization of resonance-impact DEA systems and their applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Soft Robotics: Design, Control and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop