Electronic skins and machine learning for intelligent soft robots.

Journal: Science robotics
PMID: 33022628

Abstract

Soft robots have garnered interest for real-world applications because of their intrinsic safety embedded at the material level. These robots use deformable materials capable of shape and behavioral changes and allow conformable physical contact for manipulation. Yet, with the introduction of soft and stretchable materials to robotic systems comes a myriad of challenges for sensor integration, including multimodal sensing capable of stretching, embedment of high-resolution but large-area sensor arrays, and sensor fusion with an increasing volume of data. This Review explores the emerging confluence of e-skins and machine learning, with a focus on how roboticists can combine recent developments from the two fields to build autonomous, deployable soft robots, integrated with capabilities for informative touch and proprioception to stand up to the challenges of real-world environments.

Authors

  • Benjamin Shih
    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
  • Dylan Shah
    Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Yale University, CT, USA.
  • Jinxing Li
    Department of NanoEngineering , University of California San Diego , La Jolla , California 92093 , United States.
  • Thomas G Thuruthel
    Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.
  • Yong-Lae Park
    1 Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  • Fumiya Iida
    Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland; Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom.
  • Zhenan Bao
    Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-5025, USA.
  • Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio
    Mechanical Engineering and Material Science, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University, 9 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, CT 06511, USA. rebecca.kramer@yale.edu.
  • Michael T Tolley
    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0403.

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