Biology and bioinspiration of soft robotics: Actuation, sensing, and system integration

Luquan Ren; Bingqian Li; Guowu Wei; Kunyang Wang; Zhengyi Song; Yuyang Wei; Lei Ren; Qingping Liu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103075

Biology and bioinspiration of soft robotics: Actuation, sensing, and system integration

iScience. 2021 Sep 1;24(9):103075. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103075. eCollection 2021 Sep 24.

Authors

Luquan Ren¹, Bingqian Li¹, Guowu Wei², Kunyang Wang¹, Zhengyi Song¹, Yuyang Wei³, Lei Ren^{1

3}, Qingping Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China.
² School of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Salford, M5 4WT Salford, UK.
³ School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, M13 9PL Manchester, UK.

Abstract

Organisms in nature grow with senses, nervous, and actuation systems coordinated in ingenious ways to sustain metabolism and other essential life activities. The understanding of biological structures and functions guide the construction of soft robotics with unprecedented performances. However, despite the progress in soft robotics, there still remains a big gap between man-made soft robotics and natural lives in terms of autonomy, adaptability, self-repair, durability, energy efficiency, etc. Here, the actuation and sensing strategies in the natural biological world are summarized along with their man-made counterparts applied in soft robotics. The development trends of bioinspired soft robotics toward closed loop and embodiment are proposed. Challenges for obtaining autonomous soft robotics similar to natural organisms are outlined to provide a perspective in this field.

Publication types

Review