Soft Robotics: Materials, Actuation Mechanisms, and Emerging Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Soft robotics has come up as a disruptive technology that is redefining the functionality of robotic systems through the confluence of compliant materials and nature-based actuation methods. Compared to the conventional rigid-bodied robots, soft robots possess superior adaptability, flexibility, and are safe to interact with the non-linear environment that benefits them being utilized in the biomedical field, particularly. Over the past years, great advancement has been made with regard to soft robot construction to aid in the tasks involving delicate manipulation, including endoscopic navigation, targeted drug delivery, tissue engineering and minimally invasive surgical procedures. The present paper features an extended exploration of the multidisciplinary science of soft robotics through the lenses of the three major domains; that of materials, actuation and biomedical exploitation. We discuss different soft materials: silicone elastomers, hydrogels, shape-memory polymers and liquid crystal elastomers, with some emphasis on their mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and responsiveness mechanically to external stimuli, such as temperature, pH, light, and electric fields. Prominent actuation methods, such as pneumatic, dielectric elastomer, shape-memory alloy and magneto/electroactive polymers are also categorized in the paper and their operating principles, performance parameters and use in physiological situation analysed. Special weight is given to the assimilation of such technologies into biomedical tools like soft endoscopes, artificial muscles, implantable drug-release systems, and wearable rehabilitation exosuits. We can evaluate the efficiency of the soft robots to improve patient outcomes, minimize surgical trauma and support personalized therapeutic roles through experimental analysis and synthesizing the literature. Along with these developments, difficulties continue to be faced relating to long-term material robustness, energy consumption, scaling to smaller sizes, and concurrent sensing-feedback in real time. We single out the new trends of multifunctional materials, hybrid actuation, and control systems based on artificial intelligence which will remove these shortcomings. The study ends with an avenue of future research that may expand scalable intelligent and biocompatible soft robotic platforms thus initiating the next generation of robots designed specifically toward real world complex environments, as it may relate to biomedical machines.