Advances in soft robotics, materials science, and stretchable electronics have enabled rapid
progress in soft grippers. Here, a critical overview of soft robotic grippers is presented …

Actuation is essential for artificial machines to interact with their surrounding environment
and to accomplish the functions for which they are designed. Over the past few decades …

Elastic properties of classical bulk materials can hardly be changed or adjusted in operando,
while such tunable elasticity is highly desired for robots and smart machinery. Although …

Electric motors are widely used in robots but waste energy in many applications. We
introduce an elastic energy-recycling actuator that maintains the versatility of motors while …

In recent years, light‐driven soft actuators have been rapidly developed as enablers in the
fabrication of artificial robots and biomimetic devices. However, it remains challenging to …

Recent advancements in reprogrammable metamaterials have enabled the development of
intelligent matters with variable special properties in situ. These metamaterials employ intra …

Collaborative robotics is an umbrella term that conveys the general idea of proximity
between machines and humans for some useful tasks in a shared space, with a range of …

The emerging field of soft robotics presents a new paradigm for robot design in which
“precision through rigidity” is replaced by “cognition through compliance.” Lightweight and …

Robots that physically interact with their surroundings, in order to accomplish some tasks or
assist humans in their activities, require to exploit contact forces in a safe and proficient …

In this chapter we present a state space interpretation of the small gain and passivity
approach of the previous chapter. Moreover, we will come to some kind of synthesis …