Soft actuators for real-world applications

🤖 Plain-English Summary

Inspired by physically adaptive, agile, reconfigurable and multifunctional soft-bodied animals and human muscles, soft actuators have been developed for a variety of applications, including soft grippers, artificial muscles, wearables, haptic devices and medical devices. Soft actuators are flexible and compliant and thus perfectly suited to interact with the human body.

🔑 Key Findings

• However, the complex performance of biological systems cannot yet be fully replicated in synthetic designs.
• In this Review, we discuss new materials and structural designs for the engineering of soft actuators with physical intelligence and advanced properties, such as adaptability, multimodal locomotion, self-healing and multi-responsiveness.
• We examine how performance can be improved and multifunctionality implemented by using programmable soft materials, and highlight important real-world applications of soft actuators.

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