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Soft Robotics

Scope

There has been an increasing interest in the use of soft and deformable structures in the robotic systems. Soft and deformable structures are crucial in the systems that deal with uncertain and dynamic task-environments, e.g. grasping and manipulation of unknown objects, locomotion in rough terrains, and physical contacts with living cells and human bodies. Moreover the investigations on soft materials are also necessary for more visionary research topics such as self-repairing, growing, and self-replicating robots.

Working Group on Reproducibility in Soft Robotics

Scope

This working group will:

  1. gather and report information related to soft robotics needs for guidelines within manufacturing procedures, testing methods, and reporting
  2. encourage better reporting of soft robotics methods and results through test interventions. With the establishment of this working group, there will be three areas of targeted information to be gathered:
    • surveying of the soft robotics community to understand the specific needs of this community for guidelines and standardization as it relates to the areas of manufacturing of soft actuators, sensors, and full robots, testing of components and full systems, and reporting of the resulting methods and results,
    • literature review to understand the scope of existing replication problems as represented in the publication record, and
    • communication with groups such as the TC on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Robotic and Automation Systems to better understand the development of research community guidelines. In addition to gathering information, the working group will make concrete steps towards improving repeatability in soft robotics research through paper awards at RoboSoft for excellence in reporting of manufacturing/test methods (an initiative already being tested) and development of repositories for the hosting of soft robotics methods details generally not published.

Co-chairs

Laura Blumenschein, Purdue University

Gina Olson, University of Massachusetts

Robert MacCurdy, University of Colorado Boulder

Woongbae Kim, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Europe

David Howard, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)