Most conventional hard robots are composed of metallic structures. However, the development of soft robots can find new applications in robotics and virtual humans in augmented reality environment. An elastomeric gripper of an embodied agent equipped with an embedded pneumatic network could touch, recognize and gently pick up an egg!
Researchers from Whitesides Research Group leaded by professor George Whitesides at Harvard University developed a soft robotic gripper based on embedded pneumatic networks (EPNs). The gripper, actuated by compressed air, enables complex motion for handling fragile objects, such as a chicken egg or live animals.
Soft robotic systems, and especially materials and methods for their fabrication, offer rich new opportunities. They certainly contribute to collaborations between chemists, biologists and engineers. By involving organic chemistry, soft materials science, and robotics, new soft grippers, flexible tentacles and multigait soft robots will be developed.
