Advanced Fabrication and Morphological Computation for Soft Robotics

Cecilia Laschi1, Koh Hosoda2, Jun Wei3, Pablo Valdivia4, Surya G. Nurzaman5, Fumiya Iida6

  • 1National University of Singapore
  • 2Osaka University
  • 3Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology
  • 4Singapore University of Technology and Design, MIT
  • 5Monash University
  • 6University of Cambridge

Details

08:30 - 17:00 | Mon 29 May | Room 4611/4612 | MoW6.1

Session: Advanced Fabrication and Morphological Computation for Soft Robotics

Abstract

The field of soft robotics has seen considerable advances in recent years. New materials and functional structures continue to be the basis of various novel ideas for actuators, sensors, and mechanisms for grasping, manipulation, and locomotion. However, recent advances in fabrication techniques and morphological computation are poised to further expand application areas, performance, as well as impact of soft robots. Added functionality in soft structures, quantifiable through the concept of morphological computation, relies on the manner in which various features and materials are combined in different scales. Physical properties and geometry need to be tailored to enable performance. The ability to tailor these features and the various scales at which this is done is of tremendous importance for performance. Fabrication and morphological computation are therefore two areas that will have a great impact on the Soft Robotics field. Advances in the physical understanding of various advantageous phenomena at play leads to increasingly challenging designs both in terms of desired geometries and material distributions. Traditional sequential casting and additive manufacture present serious limitations and new techniques are needed. Furthermore, new available structural functionality presents a tremendous opportunity for new techniques in morphological computation.

URL: http://brd.sutd.edu.sg/icra2017softrobotics/