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Soft Actuators and Sensors: Design, Materials, Processes and Applications

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2025) | Viewed by 1867

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Laboratory of Applied NanoSciences (COMATEC-LANS), Department of Industrial Technologies, HEIG-VD, HES-SO, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, CH-1401 Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
Interests: AFM; thin films; transparent electrodes; inkjet printing; nanocomposite materials
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Unlike traditional rigid robots, soft robots can conduct tasks in unstructured environments. Soft robots have many advantages, such as improved flexibility, lower stiffness, compliance, strong adaptability and reconfigurability, and thus have great potential in applications such as fragile object grasping, medical invasive surgery and human–machine interaction.

Soft actuators and sensors are the key components of soft robots, which are made of soft materials arranged in a certain structure, and can be activated by fluids, heat, electricity, magnets, light, humidity, chemical reactions, etc. This Special Issue mainly focuses on the design, materials, processes and applications of soft actuators and sensors. We welcome the submission of research results on areas including but not limited to:

  • Materials and their physical/chemical properties for soft actuators: elastomers, dielectric elastomers (DEs), liquid crystalline elastomers, gels and hydrogels, shape memory polymers (SMPs), shape memory alloys (SMAs), semicrystalline ferroelectric polymers, swelling polymers, electroactive polymers (EAPs), electroactive ceramics, thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPUs), naturally derived materials, materials with volume change and materials with tunable mechanical properties.
  • Structure design, modeling, optimization, motion control, multimodal locomotion and different actuation methods.
  • Manufacturing methods and processes.
  • Different applications, e.g., soft electronics, artificial muscles, wearable devices, haptic devices, soft grippers, medical devices and other novel industrial applications.

The Special Issue invites researchers to publish their original research articles on the platform, to discuss and communicate continuing challenges, opportunities and future directions of next-generation soft actuators.

Prof. Dr. Silvia Schintke
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soft actuator design
  • soft–hard actuators
  • soft actuator sensors
  • soft robotics
  • soft actuation systems
  • compliant actuation
  • pneumatic soft actuators electroactive polymer actuators
  • magnetostrictive actuators
  • magnetic soft actuators
  • modeling and intelligent control
  • control optimization
  • advanced manufacturing of soft actuators
  • fabric-embedded soft actuators
  • soft materials
  • robustness
  • electroactive polymers
  • conducting polymers
  • dielectric elastomers
  • bio-based eaps
  • hybrid eaps, artificial muscles
  • hydraulic actuators
  • electro active polymers
  • polymeric actuators

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3163 KiB  
Article
Parallel Fin Ray Soft Gripper with Embedded Mechano-Optical Force Sensor
by Eduardo Navas, Daniel Rodríguez-Nieto, Alain Antonio Rodríguez-González and Roemi Fernández
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(5), 2576; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15052576 - 27 Feb 2025
Viewed by 563
Abstract
The rapid advancement in soft robotics over the past decade has driven innovation across the industrial, medical, and agricultural sectors. Among various soft robotic designs, Fin Ray-inspired soft grippers have demonstrated remarkable adaptability and efficiency in handling delicate objects. However, the integration of [...] Read more.
The rapid advancement in soft robotics over the past decade has driven innovation across the industrial, medical, and agricultural sectors. Among various soft robotic designs, Fin Ray-inspired soft grippers have demonstrated remarkable adaptability and efficiency in handling delicate objects. However, the integration of force sensors in soft grippers remains a significant challenge, as conventional rigid sensors compromise the inherent flexibility and compliance of soft robotic systems. This study presents a parallel soft gripper based on the Fin Ray effect, incorporating an embedded mechano-optical force sensor capable of providing linear force measurements up to 150 N. The gripper is entirely 3D printed using thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs), ensuring a cost-effective, scalable, and versatile design. The proposed sensor architecture leverages a gyroid lattice structure, yielding a near-linear response with an R2 value of 0.96 across two force regions. This study contributes to the development of sensorized soft grippers with improved force-sensing capabilities while preserving the advantages of soft robotic manipulators. Full article
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22 pages, 10520 KiB  
Article
Hysteresis Compensation and Trajectory Tracking Control Model for Pneumatic Artificial Muscles
by Gaoke Ma, Hongyun Jia, Dexin Xia and Lina Hao
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(21), 9684; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14219684 - 23 Oct 2024
Viewed by 921
Abstract
The optimum performance position control of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) is restricted by their in-built hysteresis and nonlinearity. The hysteresis is usually depicted by a phenomenological model, while the model mentioned above always only describes the hysteresis phenomenon under certain conditions. Thus, the [...] Read more.
The optimum performance position control of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) is restricted by their in-built hysteresis and nonlinearity. The hysteresis is usually depicted by a phenomenological model, while the model mentioned above always only describes the hysteresis phenomenon under certain conditions. Thus, the universality of the compensator is due to its weakness in handling disparate outside conditions. Our research employs the FN–QUPI (feedforward neural network–quadratic unparallel Prandtl–Ishlinskii) model to depict the phenomenon of pressure-displacement hysteresis in PAMs. This model has high-precision expression and generalization ability for the PAM hysteresis phenomenon. According to this, an inverse model of the QUPI operator is established as a feedforward control while combining with the feedback control of incremental PID-type iterative learning. The results show that due to the hysteresis of PAM, the compound control of feedforward control and iterative learning has better tracking performance than the ordinary PID compound control in terms of convergence rate and stability. According to the mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) of the tracking process, it can be seen that the control model can achieve accurate nonlinear compensation, and the control system shows excellent robustness to different input signals. Full article
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