IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2016 - 126

Figure 2. The components of the Glue Robot Toolkit. (Photo courtesy of Fabio Giardina, used with permission.)

environment to gradually become a
reality. This new ge nre of urban
robotics takes cues from previous
industrial inno-
vations to pro-
vide a structure
The robots were
for the design of
lightweight, used
such robots. In
this vein, indus-
a wide variety of
trial-grade actu-
materials, and used
ators and sensors
are downsized
actuation methods
to fit smaller
in diverse ways,
robots, while the
inherited rigid-
such as employing
ity of industrial
balloons or
robotics is main-
tained. With
bladders to provide
these design
locomotion.
principles, the
range of robotic
solutions for
daily problems is limited, as it conforms
to a similar and well-known set of
answers that are strongly influenced by
this industrial design bias.
One example of the strong influence
of industrial ideas in robotic designs was
demonstrated in the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Robotics Challenge 2015, held in
Pomona, California, United States.
Although animals possess a very
dynamic locomotion method, all of the
25 robots in the competition presented
126

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

a rather static locomotion strategy,
using similar morphologies. It is hard to
imagine such rigid and bulky robots
operating in a human environment,
performing such tasks as cleaning deli-
cate glassware or playing with children.
Developments in areas such as machine
learning open possibilities to transcend
the digital world with human-machine
interactions, but this requires robots to
be deformable, adaptive to the environ-
ment, lightweight, and affordable.
Recently, a different kind of robotics
competition took place in Livorno,
Italy-the RoboSoft Grand Challenge,
the first outdoor competition for soft
robots in terrestrial locomotion and
manipulation. Nine universities from
seven countries participated in this
event, and 12 robots competed to be the
champion in terrestrial locomotion. For
this race, they had to be designed to
show a large change in shape while also
navigating obstacles and different ter-
rains. There was a wide range of solu-
tions, from origami wheeled robots and
vibrating robots to worm-inspired
robots (Figure 1, top). This challenge
highlighted the strengths of soft robots,
demonstrating their ability to adapt to
their surroundings and perform safe
and delicate interactions with the envi-
ronment. The robots were lightweight,
used a wide variety of materials, and
explored actuation methods in diverse

september 2016

ways, such as employing balloons or
bladders to provide locomotion.
Unlike the DARPA challenge, the
range of approaches to solve the same
task was extremely diverse. As there is
currently no toolbox of standard solu-
tions as with rigid robotics, the usage of
novel and innovative ideas to create soft
robots has enabled engineers to think
and work outside the box. The Robo-
Soft Grand Challenge validated the
notion that there is a significant place
for soft robots in the robotics landscape
and that by removing the constraints
of typical rigid design principles, inno-
vative and imaginative designs can
be created.
In contrast to their harder counter-
parts, soft robots can be easy and cheap
to manufacture, and entry-level kits
allow such robots to be created in a few
minutes. While the "Competitions" col-
umn (page 21) in this magazine details
a competition among such kits, Fabio
Giardina and Josie Hughes, from the
University of Cambridge, United King-
dom, present how dynamic walking
robots and deformable grippers can be
built within minutes using readily avail-
able materials and a few lines of code.
The key in soft robotics is the choice
of material. In addition to demonstrat-
ing sufficient deformability to adapt to
the surroundings, the material must
also provide sufficient rigidity to allow

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2016