Highlighted News 

* Registration for RoboSoft 2020 is now open. Early-bird Registration available through March 1, registration closes March 22.

* February issue of Soft Robotics is already online

* The most updated podcast episodes are available here.

New Videos

* MakeSense: Automated sensor design for proprioceptive soft robots (Jan 2020)

* Superpick polybagpicking system from soft robotics (Soft Robotics Inc., Jan 2020)

Published Journal

* Related view and review:

• A vision for future bioinspired and biohybrid robots (Sci. Robot, Jan 2020)
• Metal or muscle? The future of biologically inspired robots (Sci. Robot, Jan 2020)

* Soft arm, manipulation, grasping:

• Model-based dynamic feedback control of a planar soft robot: trajectory tracking and interaction with the environment (Int. J. Robot. Res., Dec 2020)
• On an improved state parametrization for soft robots with piecewise constant curvature and its use in model based control (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)
• A haptic continuum interface for the teleoperation of extensible continuum manipulators (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)
• TMTDyn: A Matlab package for modeling and control of hybrid rigid–continuum robots based on discretized lumped system and reduced order models (Int. J. Robot. Res., Jan 2020)
• Online disturbance estimation for improving kinematic accuracy in continuum manipulators (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)
• A soft gripper with programmable effective length, tactile and curvature sensory feedback (Smart. Mater. Struct., Jan 2020)
• Complex multiphase organohydrogels with programmable mechanics toward adaptive soft-matter machines (Sci. Adv., Jan 2020)

* Soft locomotion, compliant locomotion:

• Toward a gecko-inspired, climbing soft robot (Front. Neurorobotics, Dec 2019)
• An autonomous untethered fast soft robotic insect driven by low-voltage dielectric elastomer actuators (Sci. Robot., Dec 2019)
• Confined spaces path following for cable-driven snake robots with prediction lookup and interpolation algorithms (Sci. China Technol. Sci., Dec 2019)
• A lightweight simulation model for soft robot’s locomotion and its application to trajectory optimization (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)

* Soft sensing, artificial skin, electronic skin:

• Towards FBG-based shape sensing for micro-scale and meso-scale continuum robots with large deflection (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)
• Future trends in instrumentation and measurement: Indirect sensing in soft robots using observers/filters (IEEE Instru. Meas. Mag., Feb 2020)
• An ambient-stable and stretchable ionic skin with multimodal sensation (Mater. Horiz., Feb 2020)
• Stiffness imaging with a continuum appendage: Real-time shape and tip force estimation from base load readings (IEEE RA-L, Feb 2020)

* Soft actuator, flexible actuator, compliant actuator:

• Autonomic perspiration in 3D-printed hydrogel actuators (Sci. Robot, Jan 2020)
• Electrically-driven soft fluidic actuators combining stretchable pumps with thin McKibben muscles (Front. Robot. AI., Jan 2020)

* Soft robot application:

• Design, modeling, and evaluation of fabric-based pneumatic actuators for soft wearable assistive gloves (Soft Robotics, Jan 2020)
• Improving the performance of industrial machines with variable stiffness springs (Mech. Based Des. Struc., Jan 2020)

* Embodied intelligence, morphological computation, morphological change, growing robots:

• Quasi-static modeling of a novel growing soft-continuum robot (Int. J. Robot. Res., Dec 2019)
• Bio-inspired active skins for surface morphing (Sci. Rep., Dec 2019)
• Retraction of soft growing robots without buckling (IEEE RA-L, Jan 2020)
• A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Jan 2020)
• Large-scale automated investigation of free-falling paper shapes via iterative physical experimentation (Nat. Mach. Intell., Jan 2020)
• Complex multiphase organohydrogels with programmable mechanics toward adaptive soft-matter machines (Sci. Adv., Jan 2020)
• Variable stiffness morphing limb for amphibious legged robots inspired by chelonian environmental adaptations (Bioinspir. Biomim., Feb 2020)

* Soft matter electronics, stretchable electronics:

• Lighting up soft robotics (Nat. Mater., Dec 2019)
• Reconfigurable and programmable origami dielectric elastomer actuators with 3D shape morphing and emissive architectures (NPG Asia Mater., Dec 2019)

Popular Articles

• Soft skin-like robots you can put in your pocket (Science Daily, Dec 2019)
• Smash this robot (IEEE Spectrum, Dec 2019)
• A research team builds robots from living cells (The Economist, Jan 2020)
• First ‘living robots’ designed on supercomputer (The Guardian, Jan 2020)
• Scientists create a robot made entirely of living cells (CBC.Ca, Jan 2020)
• Meet Xenobot, an eerie new kind of programmable organism (Wired.com, Jan 2020)
• Scientists assemble frog stem cells into first ‘living machines’ (Smithsonian Mag., Jan 2020)
• Soft robot fingers sweat to cool themselves (IEEE Spectrum, Jan 2020)
• High-speed chameleon tongue redefines soft robots (ASME.org, Jan 2020)

For more details- http://softrobotics.org/newsletters/january-2020/