Soft Robotics. Mechanical Softness. Link Flexibility.

Tapping into the ‘softness’ of soft systems

This conceptual paper is cross-disciplinary, based on systems thinking and organisational learning theories. The paper examines critical development of the systems theory from hard systems thinking to soft systems thinking, the latter being the foundation of the organisational learning theory. Especially, this paper explores one key imperative of learning organisations: empowerment, which is cl...

Soft robotics for chemists.

In areas from assembly of machines to surgery, and from deactivation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to unmanned flight, robotics is an important and rapidly growing field of science and technology. It is currently dominated by robots having hard body plans—constructions largely of metal structural elements and conventional joints—and actuated by electrical motors, or pneumatic or hydrau...

Synthesis of soft colloids with well-controlled softness.

We report a novel method to prepare soft colloids with well-controlled softness. The softness of the colloids was characterised by atomic force microscopy and rheometry. Possible applications of such soft colloids in uniform particle coatings are demonstrated.

The 2015 Soft Robotics Competition

september 2016 • Ieee rObOtICs & AUtOmAtION mAGAZINe • model checking or other formal verification tools. In the months leading up to the competition, the organizers created an open source infrastructure for generating problem instances and interacting with submitted controllers. This included deciding problem specification formats and parameters of each problem domain that would be varied duri...

Soft Robotics - The Next Industrial