Design of Bio-Inspired Soft Interfaces for Object Manipulation

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, scientists have devoted increasing efforts to developing and using compliant interfaces to benefit from their intrinsic adaptability properties. Such interfaces are extensively used, for example, in soft grippers, reversible adhesives, tactile sensors, and microtransfer printing. The aim is to develop systems that deal with uncertainty and dynamic tasks like grasping and manipulation of unknown objects.

Therefore, inspired by nature, many researchers have been focusing their studies on ways to control mechanical properties on-demand.

However, contact mechanics of soft matter is not yet fully understood, due to its intrinsic viscoelasticity and rate-dependent features. In fact, the contact mechanical response of soft matter is strongly affected by the instantaneous value of its modulus, which is a function of the temperature and the frequency of excitation.

In addition, interaction phenomena occurring at the contact interface (e.g., dry and/or wet adhesion, electroadhesion, surface tension, etc.) and the surface topography characteristics (isotropy, random or ordered roughness, waviness, etc.) greatly complicate the picture.

Finally, material properties and surface interaction forces can be responsible of energy dissipation phenomena. Therefore, their control can be of crucial importance in many applications ranging from the nanoscale to the macroscopic one (e.g., superlubricity, self-cleaning surfaces, soft robots, MEMS and NEMS devices, etc.).

The very large number of scientific expertise required to deal with these topics needs an interdisciplinary approach that includes physics, material science, mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and biology. The aim of the present Special Issue is to stimulate a discussion on the most recent studies in the field of biomimetics with the aim of improving the knowledge on the behavior of soft interfaces frequently used in manipulation systems and thus opening new scenarios for modern engineering applications.

For this reason, authors are invited to submit original papers and review articles, both theoretical and experimental, aimed at providing novel solutions that enable sustainable innovation.

Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Carbone
Prof. Dr. Luciano Afferrante
Guest Editors

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• adhesion
• friction
• tribology
• wetting
• biomimetics
• roughness
• peeling
• thin films
• surface tension
• soft matter
• robotics
• object manipulation
• grippers
• micro-manipulation systems
• MEMS
• NEMS