Soft Robotics: A Route to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity in Robotics.

Robotics is entering our daily lives. The discipline is increasingly crucial in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and rescue operations, impacting our food, health, and planet. At the same time, it is becoming evident that robotic research must embrace and reflect the diversity of human society to address these broad challenges effectively.

Artificial intelligence for the recognition of benign lesions of vocal folds from audio recordings.

Objective: The diagnosis of benign lesions of the vocal fold (BLVF) is still challenging. The analysis of the acoustic signals through the implementation of machine learning models can be a viable solution aimed at offering support for clinical diagnosis.

Materials And Methods: In this study, a support vector machine was trained and cross-validated (10-fold cross-validation) using 138 features extracted from the acoustic signals of 418 patients with polyps, nodules, oedema, and cysts.

Wearable accelerometers for measuring and monitoring the motor behaviour of infants with brain damage during CareToy-Revised training.

Background: Nowadays, wearable sensors are widely used to quantify physical and motor activity during daily life, and they also represent innovative solutions for healthcare. In the clinical framework, the assessment of motor behaviour is entrusted to clinical scales, but they are dependent on operator experience. Thanks to their intrinsic objectivity, sensor data are extremely useful to provide support to clinicians.

Development of an Innovative Soft Piezoresistive Biomaterial Based on the Interconnection of Elastomeric PDMS Networks and Electrically-Conductive PEDOT:PSS Sponges.

A deeply interconnected flexible transducer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) was obtained as a material for the application of soft robotics. Firstly, transducers were developed by crosslinking PEDOT:PSS with 3-glycidyloxypropryl-trimethoxysilane (GPTMS) (1, 2 and 3% /) and using freeze-drying to obtain porous sponges. The PEDOT:PSS sponges were morphologically characterized, showing porosities mainly between 200 and 600 µm; such surface area dimensions tend to decrease with increasing degrees of crosslinking.

Embodied Intelligence in Soft Robotics Through Hardware Multifunctionality.

The soft robotics community is currently wondering what the future of soft robotics is. Therefore, it is very important to identify the directions in which the community should focus its efforts to consolidate its impact. The identification of convincing applications is a priority, especially to demonstrate that some achievements already represent an attractive alternative to current technological approaches in specific scenarios.

Evaluation of the Electroglottographic Signal Variability in Organic and Functional Dysphonia.

Objectives: To confirm the data reported in our previous studies on the analysis of the variability of the electroglottographic signal in the pathological voice; to evaluate possible differences in variability between organic and functional pathologies; to identify any distinctive/typical EGG patterns for these pathologies.

Methods: One hundred twenty-five subjects were enrolled (36 euphonic and 89 pathological: 24 functional dysphonia, 21 bilateral vocal nodules, 23 unilateral polyps and 21 unilateral cysts). All subjects were studied with videolaryngostroboscopy, spectrographic analysis of voice and electroglottography (EGG).

Fiber Jamming Transition as a Stiffening Mechanism for Soft Robotics.

Robots made of soft materials are demonstrating to be well suited in applications where dexterity and intrinsic safety are necessary. However, one of the most challenging goals of soft robotics remains the ability to change the stiffness of body parts to guarantee stability and to produce significant forces. Among soft actuation technologies reported in literature, the jamming phenomenon is now achieving resounding interest.

Toward a Variable Stiffness Surgical Manipulator Based on Fiber Jamming Transition.

Soft robots have proved to represent a new frontier for the development of intelligent machines able to show new capabilities that can complement those currently performed by robots based on rigid materials. One of the main application areas where this shift is promising an impact is minimally invasive surgery. In previous works, the STFF-FLOP soft manipulator has been introduced as a new concept of using soft materials to develop endoscopic tools.

Soft Robotic Manipulator for Improving Dexterity in Minimally Invasive Surgery.

Background: Combining the strengths of surgical robotics and minimally invasive surgery (MIS) holds the potential to revolutionize surgical interventions. The MIS advantages for the patients are obvious, but the use of instrumentation suitable for MIS often translates in limiting the surgeon capabilities (eg, reduction of dexterity and maneuverability and demanding navigation around organs). To overcome these shortcomings, the application of soft robotics technologies and approaches can be beneficial.

Highly dexterous 2-module soft robot for intra-organ navigation in minimally invasive surgery.

Background: For some surgical interventions, like the Total Mesorectal Excision (TME), traditional laparoscopes lack the flexibility to safely maneuver and reach difficult surgical targets. This paper answers this need through designing, fabricating and modelling a highly dexterous 2-module soft robot for minimally invasive surgery (MIS).

Methods: A soft robotic approach is proposed that uses flexible fluidic actuators (FFAs) allowing highly dexterous and inherently safe navigation.

Learning Closed Loop Kinematic Controllers for Continuum Manipulators in Unstructured Environments.

This article introduces a machine-learning-based approach for closed loop kinematic control of continuum manipulators in the task space. For this purpose, we propose a unique formulation for learning the inverse kinematics of a continuum manipulator while integrating end-effector feedback. We demonstrate that this model-free approach for kinematic control is very well suited for nonlinear stochastic continuum robots.

Conduction Electrohydrodynamics with Mobile Electrodes: A Novel Actuation System for Untethered Robots.

Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) refers to the direct conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy of a fluid. Through the use of mobile electrodes, this principle is exploited in a novel fashion for designing and testing a millimeter-scale untethered robot, which is powered harvesting the energy from an external electric field. The robot is designed as an inverted sail-boat, with the thrust generated on the sail submerged in the liquid.

A soft multi-module manipulator with variable stiffness for minimally invasive surgery.

This work presents a soft manipulator for minimally invasive surgery inspired by the biological capabilities of the octopus arm. The multi-module arm is composed of three identical units, which are able to move thanks to embedded fluidic actuators that allow omnidirectional bending and elongation, typical movements of the octopus. The use of soft materials makes the arm safe, adaptable and compliant with tissues.

Soft robotics: Technologies and systems pushing the boundaries of robot abilities.

The proliferation of soft robotics research worldwide has brought substantial achievements in terms of principles, models, technologies, techniques, and prototypes of soft robots. Such achievements are reviewed here in terms of the abilities that they provide robots that were not possible before. An analysis of the evolution of this field shows how, after a few pioneering works in the years 2009 to 2012, breakthrough results were obtained by taking seminal technological and scientific challenges related to soft robotics from actuation and sensing to modeling and control.

Total mesorectal excision using a soft and flexible robotic arm: a feasibility study in cadaver models.

Background: Sponsored by the European Commission, the FP7 STIFF-FLOP project aimed at developing a STIFFness controllable Flexible and Learn-able manipulator for surgical operations, in order to overcome the current limitations of rigid-link robotic technology. Herein, we describe the first cadaveric series of total mesorectal excision (TME) using a soft and flexible robotic arm for optic vision in a cadaver model.

Methods: TME assisted by the STIFF-FLOP robotic optics was successfully performed in two embalmed male human cadavers.

Pleasant to the Touch: By Emulating Nature, Scientists Hope to Find Innovative New Uses for Soft Robotics in Health-Care Technology.

Open your Internet browser and search for videos showing the most advanced humanoid robots. Look at how they move and walk. Observe their motion and their interaction with the environment (the ground, users, target objects).

Large deformation of self-oscillating polymer gel.

A self-oscillating gel is a system that generates an autonomous volume oscillation. This oscillation is powered by the chemical energy of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, which demonstrates metal ion redox oscillation. A self-oscillating gel is composed of Poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAAm) with a metal ion.

Design and development of a bio-inspired, under-actuated soft gripper.

The development of robotic devices able to perform manipulation tasks mimicking the human hand has been assessed on large scale. This work stands in the challenging scenario where soft materials are combined with bio-inspired design in order to develop soft grippers with improved grasping and holding capabilities. We are going to show a low-cost, under-actuated and adaptable soft gripper, highlighting the design and the manufacturing process.

Design and Fabrication of an Elastomeric Unit for Soft Modular Robots in Minimally Invasive Surgery.

In recent years, soft robotics technologies have aroused increasing interest in the medical field due to their intrinsically safe interaction in unstructured environments. At the same time, new procedures and techniques have been developed to reduce the invasiveness of surgical operations. Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has been successfully employed for abdominal interventions, however standard MIS procedures are mainly based on rigid or semi-rigid tools that limit the dexterity of the clinician.

Cryo-scanning electron microscopy investigation of the Octopus Vulgaris arm structures for the design of an octopus-like arm artefact.

Octopus vulgaris is a cephalopod of the Octopodidae family. It has four pairs of arms and two rows of suckers which perform many functions, including bending and elongation. For this reason the octopus was chosen as model to develop a new generation of soft-body robots.

Crimped braided sleeves for soft, actuating arm in robotic abdominal surgery.

Background: This paper investigates different types of crimped, braided sleeve used for a soft arm for robotic abdominal surgery, with the sleeve required to contain balloon expansion in the pneumatically actuating arm while it follows the required bending, elongation and diameter reduction of the arm.

Material And Methods: Three types of crimped, braided sleeves from PET (BraidPET) or nylon (BraidGreyNylon and BraidNylon, with different monofilament diameters) were fabricated and tested including geometrical and microstructural characterisation of the crimp and braid, mechanical tests and medical scratching tests for organ damage of domestic pigs.

Results: BraidPET caused some organ damage, sliding under normal force of 2-5 N; this was attributed to the high roughness of the braid pattern, the higher friction coefficient of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) compared to nylon, and the high frequency of the crimp peaks for this sleeve.

Soft Robotics: New Perspectives for Robot Bodyware and Control.

The remarkable advances of robotics in the last 50 years, which represent an incredible wealth of knowledge, are based on the fundamental assumption that robots are chains of rigid links. The use of soft materials in robotics, driven not only by new scientific paradigms (biomimetics, morphological computation, and others), but also by many applications (biomedical, service, rescue robots, and many more), is going to overcome these basic assumptions and makes the well-known theories and techniques poorly applicable, opening new perspectives for robot design and control. The current examples of soft robots represent a variety of solutions for actuation and control.

Tools and methods for experimental in-vivo measurement and biomechanical characterization of an Octopus vulgaris arm.

This work illustrates new tools and methods for an in vivo and direct, but non-invasive, measurement of an octopus arm mechanical properties. The active elongation (longitudinal stretch) and the pulling force capability are measured on a specimen of Octopus vulgaris in order to quantitatively characterize the parameters describing the arm mechanics, for biomimetic design purposes. The novel approach consists of observing and measuring a living octopus with minimally invasive methods, which allow the animal to move with its complete ability.

Biorobotic investigation on the muscle structure of an octopus tentacle.

The present paper aims at understanding the biomechanics of an octopus tentacle as preliminary work for designing and developing a new robotic octopus tentacle. The biomechanical characterization of the biological material has been carried out on samples of Octopus vulgaris tentacles with engineering methods and tools, i.e.