A review on soft materials utilized for the manufacturing of soft robots

Abstract

Since the revolution of soft robotic technology, researchers are focused on the development of the soft robotic bodies which can replicate the motion and the functions of biological bodies. The aim is to develop the soft materials which have the ability to show the deformability and mechanical compliance of biological tissues. This paper focuses on the developed soft robotic materials utilized either for the development of the robotic body or for the actuation techniques. Utilization of various soft materials based on the different actuation techniques such as fluids, gels, soft elastomers, soft polymer composites, and liquid metal-embedded elastomers (LMEE) are reviewed in this work. Thus, the paper provides an insight about the soft materials, which is useful for the new researchers interested in the field of soft robotics. Motivated from the nature or biology, researchers started to design and develop soft robotic bodies using soft and compliant materials for different types of real life applications.