Small and Soft: Nimble Robotics with Miniaturized and Flexible Designs

Dear Colleagues,

Boosted by recent advancements in fabrication techniques, materials science, and control algorithms, small-scale robotics (from nano/micrometer- to a few centimeter-size ranges) has emerged as a burgeoning field with profound implications across various domains, such as biomedicine, environmental monitoring, manufacturing, and exploration. As compared to larger counterparts, small-scale robots display a higher potential for enhanced maneuverability, scalability, rapid manufacturing, and use integration into constrained environments. By offering unique capabilities and opportunities, diminutive robotic platforms warrant keen interest from the scientific community, which researches their mechanical capabilities, biomimetic designs, and advanced functionalities such as autonomous navigation, swarm intelligence, and multi-modal sensing. Continued progress in miniaturization techniques, energy harvesting, and control strategy robustness is likely to advance the field of small-scale robotics.

The flexible and adaptive motion of natural organisms is enabled by their mechanical compliancy and specific body design. As such, soft materials have emerged in robotics due to their exceptional enabling potential in dynamic machines. The flexibility of soft robots promises compliant contact, dexterity, and agility in complex task performance and dynamic environments. The full potential of soft robots is yet to be fully unlocked; thus, research attention focuses on strategies that encourage soft robots to outperform conventional, rigid robots and match the abilities of living organisms in critical, applicative areas, such as locomotion and manipulation.

Miniaturization and softness are two robotic engineering trends with a wide applicative potential in various human activities, and these require intense investigation from the scientific community. Ultimately, technical challenges (such as control over infinite degrees of freedom, power constraints, and communication limitations) and ethical considerations require concerted research efforts to be surmounted, and important realizations are expected to arise from the intersection of these two promising domains. The enhanced adaptability and versatility of dynamic machines can be achieved if we learn how to harness the inherent flexibility, deformability, and biocompatibility of soft materials at diminutive scales. In addition, amalgamating soft materials with miniaturized components will promote the development of lightweight, energy-efficient systems, poised to revolutionize fields such as healthcare, environmental monitoring, and human–robot interaction.

This Special Issue aims to collect scientific contributions (research papers and review articles) that advance the fields of small-scale robotics and soft robotics, or a combination thereof. This collection welcomes contributions that elucidate the significance of engineering small-scale and/or soft robots by examining technical challenge advancements, applications, and prospects. The expected contribution area concerns the manufacturing and characterization processes of products involved in the creation of dynamic systems with miniaturized designs and soft properties. Accepted topics include (but are not limited to) actuators, sensing technologies, collective behavior and robotic control paradigms, electronics, medical devices, robotic applications, and real-world operativity, in the realm of small and soft robotics.

Dr. Miriam Filippi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.

• small-scale robotics
• soft robots
• robotic applications
• biomimetic designs
• autonomous navigation