#soft robotics

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.

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.

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.

Microfluidic Salamander Bot

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

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."