Polyurethane foams and 3D-printed lattice structures were covered in wax and tested at various temperatures. The results indicated that wax-coated structures have the potential to act as a much more controllable medium for robotics, allowing for controlled changes and repairs to be made to the structure’s stiffness modulus through temperature change.

Cheng, N.G., Gopinath, A., Wang, L., Iagnemma, K. and Hosoi, A.E. (2014), Thermally Tunable, Self-Healing Composites for Soft Robotic Applications. Macromol. Mater. Eng., 299: 1279-1284. https://doi.org/10.1002/mame.201400017

Paper 2: Puffy, a friendly inflatable social robot (S21 R75)

This paper (and supplementary video) discusses the purpose and features of a Baymax-esque soft robot designed to improve children’s learning environments. The video demonstrates a classroom application of the technology using a conceptual prototype, however neither it nor the article go into technical depth. That being said, it is made clear that the multi-sense interactivity and target aura of Puffy is largely possible due to it being a soft robot.

Alessandro Ubaldi, Mirko Gelsomini, Marzia Degiorgi, Giulia Leonardi, Simone Penati, Noëlie Ramuzat, Jacopo Silvestri, and Franca Garzotto. Puffy, a friendly inflatable social robot. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA ’18, 1. Association for Computing Machinery, 2018. doi:10.1145/3170427.3186595.

Paper 3: Electroactive textile actuators for wearable and soft robots (IEEE)

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are thin, multilayered membranes that physically deform as a result of a voltage being applied. This paper tested the relative change in top surface area as a result of small voltages (9kV and 6kV) being applied to multiple DEA configurations. This technology can harness this deformation to create specific movements and ultimately achieve actuation from a voltage supply.

J. Guo, C. Xiang, T. Helps, M. Taghavi, and J. Rossiter. Electroactive textile actuators for wearable and soft robots. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), 339–343. April 2018. doi:10.1109/ROBOSOFT.2018.8404942.