Abstract
Soft robotics is of growing interest in the robot community as well as in public media, and there is an increase in the quality and quantity of publications related to this topic. To formally elaborate this growth, we have used a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the publications in the field from 1990 to 2017 based on the Science Citation Index Expanded database. We present a detailed overview and discussion based on keywords, citation, h-index, year, journal, institution, country, author, and review articles. The results show that the United States takes the leading position in this research field, followed by China and Italy. Harvard University has the most publications, high average number of citations per publication and the highest h-index. IEEE Transactions on Robotics ranks first among the top 20 academic journals publishing articles related to this field, whereas Soft Robotics holds the top position in journals categorized with “ROBOTICS.” Actuator, fabrication, control, material, sensing, simulation, bionics, stiffness, modeling, power, motion, and application are the hot topics of soft robotics. Smart materials, bionics, morphological computation, and embodiment control are expected to contribute to this field in the future. Application and commercialization appear to be the initial driving force and final goal for soft robots.
Highlights
In recent years, soft robotics has become one of the fastest growing topics in the robotic community, and its rise in academia[1] suggests the potential to revolutionize the role of robotics in society and industry.[2]
IEEE Transactions on Robotics ranks first among the top 20 academic journals publishing articles related to this field, whereas Soft Robotics holds the top position in journals categorized with ‘‘ROBOTICS.’’ Actuator, fabrication, control, material, sensing, simulation, bionics, stiffness, modeling, power, motion, and application are the hot topics of soft robotics
70 countries have contributed to the soft robotics research field with 1495 publications, in which 37 are Essential Science Indicators (ESI) high cited articles and 4 are ESI hot articles
Summary
Soft robotics has become one of the fastest growing topics in the robotic community, and its rise in academia[1] suggests the potential to revolutionize the role of robotics in society and industry.[2]. According to a survey of the literature, the term ‘‘soft robot’’ was first used for a rigid pneumatic hand,[3] which had a certain degree of object compliance owing to the compressibility of gas. Soft robot was gradually used in a variety of articles, patents, reports, and other scientific documents, yet still represented a robot or similar machine composed of rigid materials. In 2008, the term ‘‘soft robotics’’ was adopted to describe investigation of rigid robots with compliant joints,[4] as well as soft material-based robots with large scale flexibility, deformability, and adaptability.[5]. The efforts to invent new robots that are totally different from their conventional rigid counterparts really started far before the appearance of the professional terminology. In the 1950s, McKibben developed braided pneumatic actuators for an orthotic appliance for polio patients.[6]
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