Soft Robotics

What Does Soft Robotics Mean?

Soft robotics is the subset of robotics that focuses on technologies that more closely resemble the physical characteristics of living organisms. Experts describe the soft robotics approach as a form of biomimicry in which the traditionally linear and somewhat stilted aspects of robotics are replaced by much more sophisticated models that imitate human, animal and plant life.

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Techopedia Explains Soft Robotics

One of the easiest ways to describe soft robotics is to describe the traditional robot. The robot as portrayed decades before its current evolution was a set of boxes and tubes. Its surfaces were hard metal. It moved in very specific linear ways.

The soft robotics movement aims to transform that into a new type of robotics where robots look, act and feel like biological humans, animals or plants. One fundamental aspect of soft robotics is the creation of intricate, many-segmented units that can move in a more versatile way, for example, instead of a hard metal surface, a surface made up of tiny metal parts that can move like human skin. Soft robotics is being applied to many of the projects at the vanguard of the new robotics industry where robots are becoming more and more humanlike, as in the case of Sophia, a robot that received citizenship from the country of Saudi Arabia.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…