Soft robots’ flexibility and compliance give them the potential to outperform traditional rigid-bodied robots while performing multiple tasks in unexpectedly changing environments and conditions. However, soft robots...
Soft robots’ flexibility and compliance give them the potential to outperform traditional rigid-bodied robots while performing multiple tasks in unexpectedly changing environments and conditions. However, soft robots are yet to reveal their full potential; nature is still far more advanced in several areas, such as locomotion and manipulation. To understand what limits their performance and hinders their transition from laboratory to real-world conditions, future studies should focus on understanding the principles behind the design and operation of soft robots. Such studies should also consider the major challenges with regard to complex materials, accurate modeling, advanced control, and intelligent behaviors. As a starting point for such studies, this review provides a current overview of the field by examining the working mechanisms of advanced actuation and sensing modalities, modeling techniques, control strategies, and learning architectures for soft robots. Next, we summarize how these approaches can be applied to create sophisticated soft robots and examine their application areas. Finally, we provide future perspectives on what key challenges should be tackled first to advance soft robotics to truly add value to our society.
Approximately 1.1. billion people worldwide live with some form of disability, and assistive technology has the potential to increase their overall quality of life. However, the end users’ perspective and needs are o...
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Approximately 1.1. billion people worldwide live with some form of disability, and assistive technology has the potential to increase their overall quality of life. However, the end users’ perspective and needs are often not sufficiently considered during the development of this technology, leading to frustration and nonuse of existing devices. Since its first competition in 2016, CYBATHLON has aimed to drive innovation in the field of assistive technology by motivating teams to involve end users more actively in the development process and to tailor novel devices to their actual daily-life needs. Competition tasks therefore represent unsolved daily-life challenges for people with disabilities and serve the purpose of benchmarking the latest developments from research laboratories and companies from around the world. This review describes each of the competition disciplines, their contributions to assistive technology, and remaining challenges in the user-centered development of this technology.
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