This paper covers the use of a soft robot skin for autonomous tissue palpation, a process which is used to locate tumors but is not feasible in minimally invasive or robotic surgery. It explores a skin made of soft robotic tactile elements that are able to expand and record the tissue response during expansion.

Root Paper: Remote palpation technology

R. D. Howe, W. J. Peine, D. A. Kantarinis and J. S. Son, “Remote palpation technology,” in IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 318-323, May-June 1995, doi: 10.1109/51.391770.

This paper covers how the surgeons sense of touch has been used to perceive anatomical structures and pathologies, but new minimally invasive techniques have separated the surgeons hands from the surgical site. The paper then explores tactile sensors and how they can be used to recreate the tactile stimulus directly on the surgeon’s finger tip

It has 218 paper citiations and was also cited in :

Related Paper: Modeling and testing of a sensor capable of determining the stiffness of biological tissues

J. Dargahi, S. Najarian, V. Mirjalili and B. Liu, “Modelling and testing of a sensor capable of determining the stiffness of biological tissues,” in Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 45-51, Winter 2007, doi: 10.1109/CJECE.2007.364332.

This paper covers using sensors in rubber like materials to create a probe that could estimate the stiffness of materials and how this can be applied to breast cancer detection.

The paper talks about the design of a bending pneumatic rubber actuator and its application to a soft-bodied Manta swimming robot. The paper analyzes several different types of actuators in search of the characteristics to lead to an optimal actuator design

K. Suzumori, S. Endo, T. Kanda, N. Kato and H. Suzuki, “A Bending Pneumatic Rubber Actuator Realizing Soft-bodied Manta Swimming Robot,” Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2007, pp. 4975-4980 doi:10.1109/ROBOT.2007.364246.

Development of magnet connection of modular units for soft robotics

The paper examines the modularization of soft robotics with magnet connections for modularized soft units. In the study they tested the connecting strength of the magnet connection and bending performance of a soft bending actuator assembled with the units.

J. Lee and K. Cho, “Development of magnet connection of modular units for soft robotics,” 2017 14th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI), 2017, pp. 65-67 doi:10.1109/URAI.2017.7992886.

Soft robotics: a bioinspired evolution in robotics

The paper examines how robotic engineers have been inspired by the way animals exploit soft structures to move effectively in complex natural environments. It explores how incorporating soft technologies can potentially reduce the mechanical and algorithmic complexity involved in robot design.

Sangbae Kim, Cecilia Laschi, Barry Trimmer,
Soft robotics: a bioinspired evolution in robotics,
Trends in Biotechnology,
Volume 31, Issue 5,
2013,
Pages 287-294,
ISSN 0167-7799,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2013.03.002.