Soft robots are going to play a big role in space exploration, search & rescue, medical surgery, rehab, and other fields. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a soft robot powered by pressurized air that can pave the way for fully untethered robots for a variety of missions. The weight and complexity of components needed to power the device is greatly reduced.
Before this research, we couldn’t build fluidic soft robots without independently controlling each actuator through separate input lines and pressure supplies and a complex actuation process. Now, we can embed the functionality of fluidic soft robots in their design, allowing for a substantial simplification in their actuation.
explained Nikolaos Vasios, a graduate student at SEAS.
[HT]
