Soft Material

Soft materials research focuses on developing robots and sensors with properties like flexibility, safety, and adaptability, enabling safer human-robot interaction and novel applications in diverse fields. Current research emphasizes improved design methodologies and fabrication techniques for soft robots, often employing compliant mechanisms and data-driven modeling approaches like physics-informed neural networks and convolutional neural networks to address the challenges of nonlinear material behavior and accurate sensing. This work is significant for advancing robotics, particularly in areas requiring delicate manipulation or interaction with humans, and for creating new materials with tailored properties through microstructure control and machine learning.