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Soft Robotics
Author(s) -
Whitesides George M.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201800907
Subject(s) - robotics , artificial intelligence , soft robotics , robot , field (mathematics) , computer science , robotic paradigms , soft materials , human–computer interaction , nanotechnology , mathematics , materials science , pure mathematics
This description of “soft robotics” is not intended to be a conventional review, in the sense of a comprehensive technical summary of a developing field. Rather, its objective is to describe soft robotics as a new field—one that offers opportunities to chemists and materials scientists who like to make “things” and to work with macroscopic objects that move and exert force. It will give one (personal) view of what soft actuators and robots are, and how this class of soft devices fits into the more highly developed field of conventional “hard” robotics. It will also suggest how and why soft robotics is more than simply a minor technical “tweak” on hard robotics and propose a unique role for chemistry, and materials science, in this field. Soft robotics is, at its core, intellectually and technologically different from hard robotics, both because it has different objectives and uses and because it relies on the properties of materials to assume many of the roles played by sensors, actuators, and controllers in hard robotics.