Soft Robots Manufacturing: A Review

The growing interest in soft robots comes from the new possibilities offered by these systems to cope with problems that cannot be addressed by robots built from rigid bodies. Many innovative solutions have been developed in recent years to design soft components and systems. They all demonstrate ho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in robotics and AI Vol. 5; p. 84
Main Authors: Schmitt, François, Piccin, Olivier, Barbé, Laurent, Bayle, Bernard
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 2018
Subjects:
Automatic
design
Engineering Sciences
manufacturing process
prototyping
Robotics and AI
soft components
soft robotics
manufacturing process
soft robotics
prototyping
soft components
design
ISSN:2296-9144, 2296-9144
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The growing interest in soft robots comes from the new possibilities offered by these systems to cope with problems that cannot be addressed by robots built from rigid bodies. Many innovative solutions have been developed in recent years to design soft components and systems. They all demonstrate how soft robotics development is closely dependent on advanced manufacturing processes. This review aims at giving an insight on the current state of the art in soft robotics manufacturing. It first puts in light the elementary components that can be used to develop soft actuators, whether they use fluids, shape memory alloys, electro-active polymers or stimuli-responsive materials. Other types of elementary components, such as soft smart structures or soft-rigid hybrid systems, are then presented. The second part of this review deals with the manufacturing methods used to build complete soft structures. It includes molding, with possibly reinforcements and inclusions, additive manufacturing, thin-film manufacturing, shape deposition manufacturing, and bonding. The paper conclusions sums up the pros and cons of the presented techniques, and open to developing topics such as design methods for soft robotics and sensing technologies.
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Edited by: Matteo Cianchetti, Scuola Sant'Anna di Studi Avanzati, Italy
This article was submitted to Soft Robotics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI
Reviewed by: Andrew T. Conn, University of Bristol, United Kingdom; Ali Sadeghi, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Technologia, Italy
ISSN:2296-9144
2296-9144
DOI:10.3389/frobt.2018.00084