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Soft Components for Soft Robots

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Abstract

Typical robot platforms comprise rigid links with fixed degrees-of-freedom, solid blocks of transmission and actuator, and superficial positioning of sensors: they are often optimized for the given design criteria but are unable to execute instantaneous changes to the robot's initial mechanism design. The real-life incidences, however, require robots to face complex situations filled with unprogrammed tasks and unforeseen environmental changes. One of the growing efforts in the field that address such juxtaposing design paradigm is soft robotics: augmentations of “softness” in robots to complement, adapt, and reconfigure to the contingent assignments. Although the "softness" invokes and relates to many facets of robot design in both soft and hardware, this manuscript focuses on describing some critical hardware components. I will present several on going research on actuation and sensor solutions for soft robotics application as well as novel methods and materials for sensor and actuation integration.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jamie Paik

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  1. Jamie Paik
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer IPA, Stuttgart, Germany

    Alexander Verl

  2. DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Wessling, Germany

    Alin Albu-Schäffer

  3. TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Oliver Brock

  4. Leibniz University of Hannover, Garbsen, Germany

    Annika Raatz

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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Paik, J. (2015). Soft Components for Soft Robots. In: Verl, A., Albu-Schäffer, A., Brock, O., Raatz, A. (eds) Soft Robotics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44506-8_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44506-8_23

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44505-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44506-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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