The Soft Robotics Inspiration Guide, 3D Printing Your Way From Idea to Application Paper will bring you up-to-speed on the rise of the field of soft robotics and the multitude of applications across a range of industries.
Learn how the University of California, San Diego’s Bioinspired Robotics and Design Lab is pushing the boundaries of:
- Soft gripper mechanisms
- Haptic object visualization
- Various soft robotics projects including origami-style robots
What is Soft Robotics?
Fundamentally, soft robots are exactly what they sound like, robots that are compliant in places where it’s most useful. And it’s this softness that makes the new soft robots more successful interacting with everything from a strawberry to a human.
Constructing a robot from compliant materials, such as elastomers or stretchy plastics, gives them a far greater ability to interact with objects less rigid than they are. Scientists speak of “compliance matching” or the idea that “materials that come into contact with each other should share similar mechanical rigidity in order to evenly distribute internal load and minimize interfacial stress concentrations,” according to Elveflow Plug & Play Microfluidics. Simply put, this means that traditional robots, with their hard, rigid nature do not typically interact well with humans. Soft robots are both made with softer materials and are adaptable to equalizing their force relative to the object they are interacting with.
Soft Robotics Application
Download the white paper to learn more about soft robotics and the application of 3D printing in the construction of robots.
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