#soft robotics

[hometoursandotherstuff]

They call it a "freak bot," but it's name is "Licker," and it is intended for various uses such as elderly care, therapeutic rehabilitation for swallowing disorders, and emotional bonding.

https://www.uniladtech.com/news/tech-news/japan-licker-freak-bot-licking-robot-371125-20260305

[pencilbrony]

Compliant frame

[scifigeneration]

A flexible lens controlled by light-activated artificial muscles promises to let soft machines see

by Corey Zheng, PhD Student in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Shu Jia, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Inspired by the human eye, our biomedical engineering lab at Georgia Tech has designed an adaptive lens made of soft, light-responsive, tissuelike materials.

Adjustable camera systems usually require a set of bulky, moving, solid lenses and a pupil in front of a camera chip to adjust focus and intensity. In contrast, human eyes perform these same functions using soft, flexible tissues in a highly compact form.

Our lens, called the photo-responsive hydrogel soft lens, or PHySL, replaces rigid components with soft polymers acting as artificial muscles. The polymers are composed of a hydrogel − a water-based polymer material. This hydrogel muscle changes the shape of a soft lens to alter the lens’s focal length, a mechanism analogous to the ciliary muscles in the human eye.

The hydrogel material contracts in response to light, allowing us to control the lens without touching it by projecting light onto its surface. This property also allows us to finely control the shape of the lens by selectively illuminating different parts of the hydrogel. By eliminating rigid optics and structures, our system is flexible and compliant, making it more durable and safer in contact with the body.

Why it matters

Artificial vision using cameras is commonplace in a variety of technological systems, including robots and medical tools. The optics needed to form a visual system are still typically restricted to rigid materials using electric power. This limitation presents a challenge for emerging fields, including soft robotics and biomedical tools that integrate soft materials into flexible, low-power and autonomous systems. Our soft lens is particularly suitable for this task.

Soft robots are machines made with compliant materials and structures, taking inspiration from animals. This additional flexibility makes them more durable and adaptive. Researchers are using the technology to develop surgical endoscopes, grippers for handling delicate objects and robots for navigating environments that are difficult for rigid robots.

The same principles apply to biomedical tools. Tissuelike materials can soften the interface between body and machine, making biomedical tools safer by making them move with the body. These include skinlike wearable sensors and hydrogel-coated implants.

This variable-focus soft lens, shown viewing a Rubik’s Cube, can flex and twist without being damaged. (image source: Corey Zheng/Georgia Institute of Technology)

What other research is being done in this field

This work merges concepts from tunable optics and soft “smart” materials. While these materials are often used to create soft actuators – parts of machines that move – such as grippers or propulsors, their application in optical systems has faced challenges.

Many existing soft lens designs depend on liquid-filled pouches or actuators requiring electronics. These factors can increase complexity or limit their use in delicate or untethered systems. Our light-activated design offers a simpler, electronics-free alternative.

What’s next

We aim to improve the performance of the system using advances in hydrogel materials. New research has yielded several types of stimuli-responsive hydrogels with faster and more powerful contraction abilities. We aim to incorporate the latest material developments to improve the physical capabilities of the photo-responsive hydrogel soft lens.

We also aim to show its practical use in new types of camera systems. In our current work, we developed a proof-of-concept, electronics-free camera using our soft lens and a custom light-activated, microfluidic chip. We plan to incorporate this system into a soft robot to give it electronics-free vision. This system would be a significant demonstration for the potential of our design to enable new types of soft visual sensing.

[stevebattle]

ChemBot "Jamming Skin Polymorph" (2009) by iRobot, Bedford, MA. The shape-shifting ChemBot moves around using “jamming skin enabled locomotion.” Its silicone skin includes twenty bladders, arranged in a regular icosahedron, filled with air and loosely-packed particles. When the air is sucked out, the decrease in pressure constricts the skin, and the remaining particles solidify in place. Under the ChemBot's skin is an incompressible fluid sac and an actuator to vary its volume. A combination of unjamming selected bladders and inflating the interior sac causes its skin to bulge outwards, making it roll around.

"If covert access to denied or hostile space is required during military operations, the effectiveness of unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots can be limited if the only available points of entry are small openings. The goal of the Chemical Robots (ChemBots) program is to create a new class of soft, flexible, meso-scale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions and perform tasks once entry is gained." – Chemical Robots (ChemBots), Dr. Gill Pratt, DARPA, Defence Sciences Office.

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Microfluidic Salamander Bot

Not all robots need servos to function. Soft robotics is a field which uses a variety of methods to replicate motion using anything from pnuematic to hyraulic and beyond. "This robot is powered by custom vacuum actuators and controlled by an external electrofluidic system. The creator has added a bending lower leg, a soft spinal cord with embedded channels, a 3D-printed control hub to tame the tubing mess, and a joystick interface for interactive control. The motion is driven by a simple rhythmic function — loosely inspired by central pattern generators — but entirely implemented in code on an Arduino."

[wtf-fun-factss]

Researchers created a robotic hand that mimics human bones, ligaments, and tendons. Click to read the full fact.

[bpod-bpod]

Cool Hand

Soft robotic hand with palm to finger coordination (known as TacPalm SoftHand) advances the possibilities for performing delicate operations (such as picking up an irregular-looking cucumber)

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Ningbin Zhang and Jieji Ren, and colleagues

Robotics Institute, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, March 2025

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[roboticsappreciationsociety]

Laser-controlled liquid metals herald new era for soft robotics

Researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ) are developing new 4D printing technology that produces shape-shifting liquid metals for so

by Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN)

Researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ) are developing new 4D printing technology that produces shape-shifting liquid metals for soft robotics.

4D printing is an extension of 3D printing, where solid objects are created using materials that can change shape when exposed to certain stimuli like heat, water or light.

At UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), researchers are printing 4D structures using new liquid metal polymers that can be coaxed into performing a range of mechanical tasks with infrared lasers.

Lead researchers Dr. Liwen Zhang and Dr. Ruirui Qiao said the unique preparation methods developed by their lab allow them to produce 4D designs that are solid and durable while also being able to bend, grasp, lift, and release items five times their weight, or revert to a pre-programmed shape.

"4D printing takes traditional 3D printing and adds a new dimension—the dimension of time," Dr. Zhang said. "Our method allows us to produce smart liquid metals that can be customized, shaped and prompted to change over time without needing wires or circuits.

"This is a new era for robotics applications and a game-changer for additive manufacturing."

4D printed objects are usually prepared with a 3D printer using specific ingredients that give the finished product new qualities and abilities.