Introduction to Soft Robotics

Upon completion of this course successful students will be able to:

• Summarize the working principles of soft robots and outline major innovations in the field of soft robotics.

• Describe fundamental mechanisms of actuation, sensing, and control in the context of soft robotics systems and explain their advantages and limitations.

• Identify different design and fabrication techniques and choose proper methods for constructing soft robots

Upon completion of this course successful students will be able to:

• Design, compose, construct, and evaluate soft robotics prototypes for specific tasks
• Test and analyze the performance of soft robotic elements and interpret the results
• Fabricate functioning soft robotic devices made of compliant materials.

• Apply the methods of iterative, incremental development in the construction of a prototype.
• Conceive an idea for a soft robotic prototype for a specific task or application and execute it, drawing on knowledge of existing work and techniques.
• Develop novel soft robot designs, soft robotic components, or fabrication techniques

This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to soft robotics and reviews recent works and research in this field. Soft robots are an emerging class of robots that take inspiration from natural organisms and deal with constructing robots from highly compliant materials to create soft machines that can adapt to a wide variety of tasks. The teaching encompasses theoretical and practical work on actuation and perception mechanisms, sensing technologies, control strategies, and design and fabrication techniques for soft robots. It also surveys several cases of implementing these elements in soft robotic systems. Alongside the theoretical, and methodological study, students will gain hands-on experience working with soft robotics through lab exercises and work on a final group project and build a soft robot prototype.

Topics that will be covered in this course include

• Bioinspired soft robots

• Engineering soft materials for soft robots

• Principles of soft actuation mechanisms

• Sensing technologies for sensorized soft robots

• Control strategies for soft robots

• Computational tools for modeling and simulation of soft robots

• Design and fabrication techniques for soft robots

• Selected applications of soft robots

• 1 weekly lecture and 4 hours of interactive lab tutorials (in total for 12 weeks)
• Students should hand in assignments and prepare some presentations.
• Students will work on an exam project in groups or individually under supervision of lecturers
• Students should hand in a short report on the final project at the end of the course in a predefined format. For a group project, the final report can also be handed in as a group report.
• Students should create a video on their project that will be exhibited at the end of the semester.