The Evolution of Soft Robotics

Abstract

The field of soft mechanisms and sensors provides an exciting opportunity for new hardware development in robotics, a field that is becoming more and more important. This talk describes the development of soft mechanisms, sensors, and their integration into robots for purposes that span from biomimicry, biomedical devices, to virtual reality immersion. My research group, the Organic Robotics Laboratory (ORL), chooses to use intrinsically soft elastomers to compose our robots and have created sensors based on optical waveguides, actuators based on poroelastic foams, and color changing robots based on stretchable, light emitting capacitors. The materials, processing, and mechanics of these systems will be discussed, as well as the potential for future development and integration of these (and other) systems.