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Soft Robotics
Open accessAbstract
This description of “soft robotics” is not intended to be a conventional review, in the sense of a comprehensive technical summary of a developing field. Rather, its objective is to describe soft robotics as a new field—one that offers opportunities to chemists and materials scientists who like to make “things” and to work with macroscopic objects that move and exert force. It will give one (personal) view of what soft actuators and robots are, and how this class of soft devices fits into the more highly developed field of conventional “hard” robotics. It will also suggest how and why soft robotics is more than simply a minor technical “tweak” on hard robotics and propose a unique role for chemistry, and materials science, in this field. Soft robotics is, at its core, intellectually and technologically different from hard robotics, both because it has different objectives and uses and because it relies on the properties of materials to assume many of the roles played by sensors, actuators, and controllers in hard robotics.
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“The combination of soft robotics with e-skin can additionally provide the user with a safe, light, and low complexity mode of actuation without the high cognitive strain associated with its rigid and heavy counterpart.[33–35]”
From Flexible Electronics and Devices as Human–Machine Interfaces for Medical Robotics (2022) · cites this paper as [34]
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BackgroundFast Untethered Soft Robotic Crawler with Elastic Instability
Xiong, Z., Su, Y., & Lipson, H. (2023) · Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/icra48891.2023.10160610 · Cited by 18
Photothermal‐Driven Crawlable Soft Robot with Bionic Earthworm‐Like Bristle Structure
Lou, P., Tian, L., Yao, M., Nie, J., & He, Y. T. (2023) · Advanced Intelligent Systems · doi:10.1002/aisy.202300540 · Cited by 18
Moran, A. M., Vo, V. T., McDonald, K. J., Sultania, P., Langenbrunner, E., Chong, J. H. V., Naik, A. J., Kinnicutt, L., Li, J.-S., & Ranzani, T. (2024) · Communications Engineering · doi:10.1038/s44172-024-00251-y · Cited by 18
“The emerging fi eld of soft robotics has been demonstrated to be suitable for operations in complex and unstructured environments 1,2 .”
BackgroundAn, S., Li, X., Guo, Z., Huang, Y., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, H. (2024) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-024-51865-x · Cited by 26
Going Beyond Traditional Applications? The Potential of Hydrogels
Zhang, Z., Young, D. J., Li, Z., & Loh, X. J. (2018) · Small Methods · doi:10.1002/smtd.201800270 · Cited by 18
A Cephalopod-Inspired Soft-Robotic Siphon for Thrust Vectoring and Flow Rate Regulation
Zhang, R., Shen, Z., Zhong, H., Tan, J., Hu, Y. S., & Wang, Z. (2020) · Soft Robotics · doi:10.1089/soro.2019.0152 · Cited by 18
Design of multi-material soft pneumatic modules
Guo, D., Kang, Z., Wang, Y., & Li, M. (2021) · Smart Materials and Structures · doi:10.1088/1361-665x/ac159f · Cited by 18
Light-gated redox switching and actuation in polymer hydrogels
Weber, R. R., Hein, R., Ryabchun, A., Gisbert, Y., Romero, D. G., Loi, M. A., & Feringa, B. L. (2025) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-64123-5 · Cited by 17
“(Remarks to the Author) The authors describe a nice strategy to enable light and chemically triggered redox hydrogels.”
Xiong, Q., Lee, O., Mirkin, C. A., & Schatz, G. C. (2022) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/jacs.2c11834 · Cited by 18
Davies, J., Thai, M. T., Low, H., Phan, P. T., Hoang, T. T., Lovell, N. H., & Do, T. N. (2023) · Soft Robotics · doi:10.1089/soro.2021.0154 · Cited by 17
Soft alchemy: a comprehensive guide to chemical reactions for pneumatic soft actuation
Villeda-Hernandez, M., Baker, B. C., Romero, C., Rossiter, J. M., & Faul, C. F. J. (2024) · Soft Science · doi:10.20517/ss.2023.52 · Cited by 17
Chau, M., Wong, W., Kajitani, T., & Leung, F. K. (2024) · Advanced Science · doi:10.1002/advs.202407130 · Cited by 17
Thermodynamic costs of dynamic function in active soft matter
Dou, Y., Dhatt-Gauthier, K., & Bishop, K. J. M. (2018) · Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science · doi:10.1016/j.cossms.2018.11.002 · Cited by 17
Towards more Energy Efficient Pneumatic Soft Actuators using a Port-Hamiltonian Approach
Chun, H.-T. D., Roberts, J. O., Sayed, M. E., Aracri, S., & Stokes, A. A. (2019) · IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) · doi:10.1109/robosoft.2019.8722709 · Cited by 17
“Pneumatic soft actuators, and in particular, the ‘pneu-net’ actuator [2], became popular among researchers in various applications, despite their low mechanical efficiency [3].”
BackgroundYan, X., Chen, Q., Huo, Z., Zhang, N., & Ma, M. (2022) · ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · doi:10.1021/acsami.2c01549 · Cited by 17
Embedded Magnetic Sensing for Feedback Control of Soft HASEL Actuators
Sundaram, V. H., Ly, K. D., Johnson, B. K., Naris, M., Anderson, M. P., Humbert, J. S., Correll, N., & Rentschler, M. E. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Robotics · doi:10.1109/tro.2022.3200164 · Cited by 18
“unstructured environments [1], [2], [3], [4].”
Lessons for Robotics From the Control Architecture of the Octopus
Sivitilli, D. M., Smith, J. R., & Gire, D. H. (2022) · Frontiers in Robotics and AI · doi:10.3389/frobt.2022.862391 · Cited by 13
“This paper does not focus on actuation per se; this topic is covered thoroughly in reviews on soft robotics (Kim et al., 2013; Galloway et al., 2016; Manti et al., 2016; Polygerinos et al., 2017; Cianchetti et al., 2018; Whitesides, 2018).”
BackgroundEfficient pneumatic actuation modeling using hybrid physics-based and data-driven framework
Zhang, Z., Jin, Z., & Gu, G. X. (2022) · Cell Reports Physical Science · doi:10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.100842 · Cited by 16
“4,5 However, rigid structures have intrinsic shortcomings, increasing research interest in soft robotics.”
BackgroundWilliams, L. O., Nava, E. K., Shi, A., Roberts, T. J., Davis, C. S., & Claridge, S. A. (2023) · ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · doi:10.1021/acsami.2c22646 · Cited by 16
Early career scientists converse on the future of soft robotics
Tauber, F., & Slesarenko, V. (2023) · Frontiers in Robotics and AI · doi:10.3389/frobt.2023.1129827 · Cited by 16
“Seventy years ago, McKibben presented the first compliant actuators (Agerholm and Lord, 1961; Schulte, 1961), which marked the beginning of soft robotics (Whitesides, 2018; Esser et al., 2020).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialPhan, P. T., Welch, D., Spiggle, J., Thai, M. T., Hoang, T. T., Davies, J., Nguyen, C. C., Zhu, K., Phan, H., Lovell, N. H., et al. (2023) · Sensors and Actuators A Physical · doi:10.1016/j.sna.2023.114555 · Cited by 17
Active-Bending Six-Bar Tensegrity Modular Robot Driven by Thin Artificial Muscles
Kobayashi, R., Nabae, H., & Suzumori, K. (2023) · IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters · doi:10.1109/lra.2023.3315537 · Cited by 16
“Their structural design combining rigid struts and flexible threads enhances their resilience, setting them apart from other soft robots [2] comprising solely of soft bodies and actuators [3], [4].”
BackgroundWang, S., Tang, Z., Xiao, Y., Wang, D., Guo, B., & Zhang, L. (2024) · Composites Science and Technology · doi:10.1016/j.compscitech.2024.110964 · Cited by 16
Novel Design of a Soft Pump Driven by Super-Coiled Polymer Artificial Muscles
Tse, Y. A., Wong, K. W., Yang, Y., & Wang, M. Y. (2020) · IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) · doi:10.1109/iros45743.2020.9341366 · Cited by 16
Metadata
- Authors
- Whitesides, G. M.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Whitesides, George M.
- Venue
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-03-08
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 16
- Pages
- 4258-4273
- ISSN
- 1433-7851 (ISSN-L)
- 1521-3773
- OpenAlex
- W4211124276
- Semantic Scholar
- 4899ed6fef8ac75874a202e3458e4a2c1151f926
- Cited by
- 850
- References
- 98
- Citations by year
- 2026: 77 · 2025: 127 · 2024: 121 · 2023: 140 · 2022: 113 · 2021: 113 · 2020: 88 · 2019: 57 · 2018: 14
- FWCI
- 5.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.osti.gov
- Locations
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1420570)
- U.S. Department of Energy (# ER45852, DESC0000989)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Harvard University (DMR- 1420570, 1420570)
- Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
- Division of Materials Research (DMR 14–20570, 1420570)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Soft Robotics and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Advanced Materials and Mechanics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robotic Locomotion and Control
- Keywords
- soft robotics, soft actuators
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