Smart fluidic channels

From motility to soft manipulation and sensing, soft robotics is an extremely active research field that attracts researchers with backgrounds in physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering. More recently, with the increasing interest in the design of green and effcient machines, which can safely interact with humans, fluidic channels have been embedded in soft robots to provide actuation stimuli, thereby constituting a robotic lymphatic system. However, while lymphatic systems in the human body are a means for both actuation and sensing, soft fluidic channels in robots are still in their infancy, relying on old technologies and simple geometries, with a strong limitation in terms of actuation, motion, function, and energy. In this VILLUM Experiment, a new class of fluidic channels, termed smart fluidic channels, will be investigated with the goal of providing a breakthrough in soft robotics. This completely unexplored opportunity could drastically change the design of soft robots, making them faster, energy efficient, and capable of performing a new wide range of movements.