Dear Colleagues,

Medical endorobots have supported clinicians in the performance of diagnosis and treatment by accessing difficult-to-reach organs through minimal incisions or natural orifices, thus providing safe and reliable platforms, improving precision, and enhancing dexterity, all with an ergonomic user interface. The development of such small devices requires a multidisciplinary team to design actuators, sensors, and control strategies in a synergetic interaction. Limited space inside the human body has required researchers to develop new materials to design novel actuators, such as soft polymers, shape memory alloys, dielectric elastomer, and others. Smart sensors are required to measure the force and torque applied to the surrounding organs and to measure deformations. Actuation and sensing are combined by using smart control strategies to provide a stable, fast, and reliable interface for users.

This Special Issue aims to collect articles, new studies, and reviews on electrodynamic, electromagnetic, shape memory, fluidic, and polymer actuators, sensors, and control solutions for the design of endorobots, including smart materials for both actuation and sensing and hardware and algorithms, as well as novel mechanical designs.

The content of this topic fits the aim and scope of the journal, specifically in terms of robotics, medical instruments, and miniuturisation, including aspects of actuators and control systems. We aim to provide readers with a useful collection of articles on endorobots. The Guest Editors are experts in the field of medical robotics, soft actuators and device, motion control systems, shape memory actuators, and electroactive polymers and have already collaborated together in previous research work.

Dr. Luigi Manfredi
Prof. Dr. Gianluca Rizzello
Prof. Dr. Paul Motzki
Prof. Dr. Peter P. Pott
Guest Editors

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