Soft Robotics: Fusing Function with Structure

Dear Colleagues,

This is an invitation to submit your work to this journal Special Issue dedicated to soft robotics.

The advent of soft material technologies in robotics has brought many distinct advantages, such as inherent compliance, safety, high manoeuvrability, and reconfigurability. Along with these advantages, the past years have seen many interesting applications for soft robots in areas such as surgical robotics, extreme environments, and logistics and material handling. Despite these rapid developments, many challenges that are key to the widespread adoption and efficient utilization of novel soft material technologies are still outstanding.

A major challenge that lies at the core of the field of soft robots is the fusion and integration of different functions with the soft robot body. The ability of different structures in a soft robot to seamlessly carry out different functions, for example, an actuator that is also a self-sensing element or the backbone of a robot body, will produce numerous advantages. Such a fusion is underpinned by many aspects, such as design methodologies, the development of multifunctional components, manufacturing techniques to cofabricate functional structures, sensing and perception of data, and morphological computation.

To serve as a focal point for discussing this grand challenge of “Fusing Function with Structure in Soft Robotics’’, we welcome original research articles and topical reviews related to but not limited to the following topics of interest.

Topics of Interest

• Embedded actuation of soft robots;
• Growing robots;
• Variable and controllable stiffness mechanisms;
• Mechanically programmable soft robots;
• 3d printing of soft functional devices;
• Reconfigurable robots;
• Design optimization of soft robots;
• Soft sensing and sensorization for soft robots;
• Self-sensing actuators;
• Morphological computation;
• Multimodal sensing and perception;
• Soft logic and mechanical intelligence;
• Soft robot navigation.

Best regards,

Prof. Dr. Kaspar Althoefer
Dr. Hareesh Godaba
Dr. Ahmad Ataka
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.