IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2013 - 24

robots sold in 2010 and
School of Electrical and
7,000
2011 constitutes 29% of the
Computer Engineering, Unitotal units sold between
versity of Tehran, at mora6,000
1998 and 2011, i.e., 110,000
dih@ut.ac.ir.
5,000
units, representing the sig4,000
nificant growth of service
References
3,000
[1] K. Kawamura, S. Bagchi, M.
robot usage since 1995.
Iskarous, and M. Bishay, "Intelligent
2,000
Figure 2 shows the statisrobotic systems in service of the disa1,000
tics of professional service
bled," IEEE Trans. Rehab. Eng., vol. 3,
no. 1, pp. 14-21, 1995.
robots sold in 2010 and
0
[2] Internat iona l Federat ion of
Defense
Field
Logistics
Medical
2011. In Figure 2, the robots
Robotics. Service robots: Provisional
sold in construction, mobile
definition of service robots. [Online].
platforms, cleaning, inspec- Figure 2. The number of professional service robots sold in 2011 Av a i l a b l e : ht t p : // w w w. i f r. o r g /
(blue) and 2010 (red).
service-robots/
tion, under water, and
[3] H. I. Christensen. (2013, Mar.). A
search and rescue are not
roadmap for US robotics: From
Internet to robotics. [Online]. Available: http://
shown because of the small number of
www.robotics-vo.us/
units sold. One of the very small mar[4] P. Fiorini, K. Kawamura, and E. Prassler,
kets that needs further attention is
"Cleaning and household robots," J. Auton. Robot.,
handicap-assistant robots, with 156
vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 207-209, Dec. 2000.
[5] S. Lee, E. Prassler, R. Tuokko, and H. Moradi,
units sold in 2011 and 46 units in 2010.
"The standardization and roadmapping initiatives
Because these robots are very highby the industrial activity board" IEEE Robot.
tech, they need further research to preAutomat. Mag., vol. 12, no. 4, p. 98, Dec. 2005.
pare them for the market.
[6] S. Lee and H. Moradi, "RAS IAB's roadmap
3. The Service Robot TC retirement
work shop on i ntel l igent ser v ice robot s ,"
Finally, it is interesting to mention Figure
ceremony at ICRA 2013: TC Chairs Erwin
IEEE Robot. Automat. Mag., vol. 12, no. 1, p. 12,
that the number of robots sold in the Prassler and Paolo Fiorini with RAS
Mar. 2005.
President
David
Orin,
center.
personal and domestic market grew
[7] H. Moradi, "Roadmaps for Robotics and
15% in 2011 compared with 2010, i.e.,
Automation," IEEE Robot. Automat. Mag., vol. 16,
from ~2,170,000 to 2,500,000.
and will need more attention from RAS: no. 3, p. 98, Sept. 2009.
1) educational robotics, 2) domestic ser- [8] Service Robots Technical Committee. Robotics
The Future
vice robots, and 3) intelligent compan- and Automation Society. [Online]. Available:
http://www.service-robots.org/
Although the Service Robots TC is retir- ion robots such as intelligent toys.
[9] International Federation of Robotics. (2012).
ing, the TC cochairs, past and present,
For more information, contact the Service robot statistics. [Online]. Available: http://
believe that the following areas will grow corresponding author, H. Adi Moradi, www.ifr.org/servicerobots/statistics/

Soft Robotics
By Surya G. Nurzaman, Fumiya Iida,
Cecilia Laschi, Akio Ishiguro, and Robert Wood

he use of soft and deformable
materials in robotic systems
has increasingly gained interest in recent years. Because
of its potential to deal with uncertain and unstructured task environments, soft-body robotic systems are
expected to be able to accomplish
tasks such as grasping and manipulation of unknown objects, locomotion in rough terrains, and performDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2013.2279342
Date of publication: 11 September 2013

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

ing flexible interactions between
robots and living cells or human
bodies. In addition, soft robotics
pushes the boundary of visionary
research topics such as growing, selfrepairing, and self-replicating
robots. Examples of the recent major
achievements in soft robotics are
shown in Figure 1.
As compared with other robotic
systems, soft robots are characterized
by a number of unique aspects:
1) elastic and deformable bodies, 2) a
large number of degrees of freedom,

september 2013

3) use of unconventional materials to
compose the body, and 4) involvement
of intrinsic passive mechanical
dynamics. Related to this, creating soft
robots also increases our understanding of a modern view of intelligence,
the so-called embodied intelligence or
morphological computation, which
gives more importance to the role of
the body and its physical interaction
with the environment.
The IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society Technical Committee (TC) on
Soft Robotics was established in October

http://http:// http://www.robotics-vo.us/ http://www.service-robots.org/ http://http:// http://www.ifr.org/servicerobots/statistics/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2013