Soft Robotic Actuation and Locomotion: The State of the Art

Dear Colleagues,

Soft robotics is redefining how robots move, interact, and adapt to the physical world and, by leveraging compliant materials, distributed actuation, and embodied intelligence, soft robots can achieve levels of safety, flexibility, and robustness that rigid systems cannot match. Inspired by the locomotion and morphology of biological organisms—such as octopuses, caterpillars, and starfish—soft robotic systems integrate actuation, sensing, and control within deformable structures to perform complex, adaptive behaviors.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring the design, modeling, and control of soft actuators and locomotion systems across scales and applications. The topic aligns closely with the scope of Robotics, which promotes advances in robotic mechanisms, sensing technologies, control architectures, and autonomous systems. By emphasizing material intelligence and bio-inspired motion, this collection bridges fundamental research and technological innovation, fostering new directions in adaptive and multifunctional robotic design.

Dr. Francesco Visentin
Dr. Ebrahim Shahabi Shalghouni
Prof. Dr. Kean C. Aw
Guest Editors

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. Robotics 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 1800 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.