Soft robotics: what’s next in bioinspired design and applications of soft robots?
The field of soft robotics has shown unprecedented growth in research efforts, scientific achievements, and technological advancements. Bioinspiration and biomimetics have played an instrumental role in the birth and growth of soft robotics. What is next for this field? To promote soft robotics research to the next level and have a broader impact in robotics and engineering fields, in this roadmap, we argue that two research directions should be strengthened (i) more structured, formal methods and tools for designing and developing soft robots and bioinspired robots (ii) more concrete applications of bioinspired soft robots in diverse sectors of human activities. This article provides a roadmap for the design of bioinspired soft robots, the integration of soft robot systems, and their applications in industry and services. Scientists and experts describe the state-of-the art and the perspectives of bioinspired, model-informed design of soft robots, outlining the challenges in developing complex soft robotic systems, and applications of soft robots in diverse fields.
Authors
- Li Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1498-3103)
- Arsen Abdulali (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6874-7782)
- Marcello Calisti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2590-188X)
- Leonardo Ricotti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8797-3742)
- Helmut Häuser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5634-7298)
- Matteo Cianchetti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9016-8039)
- Mirko Kovač (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9720-2463)
- Fumiya Iida (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9246-7190)
- Yifan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2284-520X)
- Kaspar Althoefer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1141-9996)
- Cecilia Laschi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5248-1043)
- Ke Liu
- Pham H. Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8620-9352)
Institutions
- Piaggio (Italy) (IT)
- Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology (US)
- Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (IT)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- Peking University (CN)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Lincoln University - Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Bristol Robotics Laboratory (GB)
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- University of Lincoln (GB)
- Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (CH)
- Beihang University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Bioinspiration & Biomimetics
- Published
- 2025-09-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ae066d
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Micro and Nano Robotics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.26