Laser Cutting as a Rapid Method for Fabricating Thin Soft Pneumatic Actuators and Robots.

Pneumatically actuated soft robots address many challenges with interfacing with delicate objects, but these actuators/robots are still bulky and require many hours to fabricate, limiting their widespread use. This article reports a novel design and manufacturing method for ultrathin soft robots and actuators (∼70 μm) using a laser-cutting machine that cuts/welds sheets of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) from a 2D CAD drawing. Using this method, five different soft actuators (e.