Conference Day (7 April)

Today, biomimetics attracts increasing attention as well from basic and applied research as from various fields of industry and building construction. Biomimetics has a high innovation potential and offers possibilities for the development of sustainable technical products and production chains. Novel sophisticated methods for analysing and simulating the form-structure-function-relation on various hierarchical levels allow new fascination insights in multi-scale mechanics and other functions of biological materials syste,s. Additionally, new production methods enable for the first time the transfer of many outstanding properties of the biological models into innovative biomimetic products at reasonable costs.
In recent decades, plants have been recognized as valuable concept generators for biomimetic research in many field of application in technology in general, and architecture and medicine in particular. Plant-inspired developments in the fields of soft machines and soft robotics are demonstrated by research projects currently carried out in the Plant Biomechanics Group Freiburg and the Cluster of Excellence livMatS. Examples include liana-inspired soft robots, leaf- and flower-inspired façade shading systems, demonstrators for pine cone-inspired self-adaptive building hulls and artificial Venus flytraps. As example for a medical application a prototype for an adaptive wrist-forearm splint developed in collaboration with the ICD at the University of Stuttgart is presented. A particular focus of current research is on embodied energy and intelligence found in moving plant organs, which offer a huge potential for a new generation of materials systems for soft robots, bioinspired architecture and technical applications in general.

Self-Sensing, Stretchable, Active Circuit Arrays: Liquid Metal Paste as a Combination Interconnect and Strain Sensor
Votzke, Callen; Menguc, Yigit; Johnston, Mathew L.

Towards a Soft Exosuit for Hypogravity Adaptation: Design and Control of Lightweight Bubble Artificial Muscles
Pulvirenti, Emanuele; Diteesawat, Richard Suphapol; Hauser, Helmut; Rossiter, Jonathan

Soft Wearable Robot with Shape Memory Alloy (SMA)-based Artificial Muscle for Assisting With Elbow Flexion and Forearm Supination/pronation
Jeong, Jaeyeon; Hyeon, Kyujin; Jang, Seung-Yeon; Chung, Chongyoung; Hussain, Sajjad; Ahn, So-Young; Bok, Soo-Kyung; Kyung, Ki-Uk

Flexible Fiber Inductive Coils for Soft Robots and Wearable Devices
Plamootil Mathai, Aby Raj; Stalin, Thileepan; Valdivia y Alvarado, Pablo

A Comparison of Silicone and Fabric Inflatable Actuators for Soft Hand Exoskeletons
Suulker, Cem; Hassan, Ahmed; Skach, Sophie; Althoefer, Kaspar

A Textile-Based Approach to Wearable Haptic Devices
Jumet, Barclay; Zook, Zane A.; Xu, Doris; Fino, Nathaniel; Rajappan, Anoop; Schara, Mark; Berning, Jeffrey; Escobar, Nicolas; OMalley, Marcia; Preston, Daniel

Air-Releasable Soft Robots for Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Nemitz, Markus; Looney, Tyler; Savard, Nathan; Teran, Gus; Milligan, Archie; Wheelock, Ryley; Scalise, Michael; Perno, Michael; Lewin, Gregory; Pinciroli, Carlo; Onal, Cagdas

An Electro-pneumatic Shape Morphing Rolling Robot with Variable Locomotion Modes
Liu, Chen; Edwards, Oliver; Althoefer, Kaspar; Zhang, Ketao; Godaba, Hareesh

Biodegradable Snake-inspired Multi-segmented Magnetic Soft Robot towards Medical Application
Wang, Chen; Puranam, Venkata Rithwick; Misra, Sarthak; Kalpathy Venkiteswaran, Venkatasubramanian

Layer jamming for variable stiffness shoes
Arleo, Luca; Dalvit, Matteo; Sacchi, Massimiliano; Cianchetti, Matteo

Model-Based Control of Planar Piezoelectric Inchworm Soft Robot for Crawling in Constrained Environments
Zheng, Zhiwu; Kumar, Prakhar; Chen, Yenan; Cheng, Hsin; Wagner, Sigurd; Chen, Minjie; Verma, Naveen; Sturm, James

Origami Inspired Design for Capsule Endoscope to Retrograde using Intestinal Peristalsis
Ge, Yukun; Lalitharatne, Thilina Dulantha; Nanayakkara, Thrishantha

Selective Patterning of Stretchable Electronics using Conductive Elastomers Embedded with Silver Powders and Carbon Nanotubes
Shin, Gyowook; Lee, Sudong; Park, Yong-Lae

Tailor-made smart glove for robot teleoperation, using printed stretchable sensors
Reis Carneiro, Manuel; Rosa, Luis Pedro; de Almeida, Anibal; Tavakoli, Mahmoud

The Validation of Viscosity Induced Chord-wise Undulation on Soft Fin Ray Array towards a Novel Robotic Manta Ray
Sun, Yi; Wu, Liao; Wang, Hongjian; Althoefer, Kaspar; Qi, Peng

Towards half-moon-shaped soft pneumatic cilia
Milana, Edoardo; Peerlinck, Sam; Flaherty, Sean; Reynaerts, Dominiek; Gorissen, Benjamin

Variable stiffness and shape prosthetic socket based on layer jamming technology
Paternò, Linda; Ibrahimi, Michele; Gruppioni, Emanuele; Menciassi, Arianna

An Electromagnetic Soft Robot that Carries its Own Magnet
Johnson, William; Woodman, Stephanie; Kramer-Bottiglio, Rebecca

Effect of Feet Failure and Control Uncertainties on the Locomotion of Multi-Legged Miniature Robots
Mahkam, Nima; Ugur, Mustafa; Ozcan, Onur

Detecting Scalable Obstacles using Soft Sensors in the Body of a Compliant Quadruped
Ozbek, Doga; Yilmaz, Talip Batuhan; Kalin, Mert Ali Ihsan; Senturk, Kutay; Ozcan, Onur

A Semi-Supervised Reservoir Computing System Based on Tapered Whisker for Mobile Robot Terrain Identification
Yu, Zhenhua; Sadati, Seyedmohammadhadi; Childs, Peter R. N.; Hauser, Helmut; Nanayakkara, Thrishantha

From minimally invasive surgical tools and assistive devices to compliant grippers and video game addons, inflatable soft robots have claimed an entire domain of applications for which safe interactions with the surrounding environment is the priority. They are inherently compliant, easy to fabricate, and able to achieve complex motions harnessing the input pressure. This simplicity, however, brings strict limitations: soft actuators are often restricted to unimodal and slow deformation. Here, we embrace instabilities as a paradigm to improve the functionality of inflatable soft robots. First, we show that buckling-induced directional frictional properties of kirigami surfaces enable a simple extending soft actuator to efficiently crawl. Then, we demonstrate that shell snapping can be exploited to make soft actuators jump even when inflated at a slow rate. Finally, we embrace multistability to realize inflatable cylindrical structures capable of supporting multiple deformation modes, while being globally actuated using a single pressure input. Together, these examples highlight the potential of instabilities in enabling the design and fabrication of soft robotic systems with enhanced functionality.

Strain-Based Consensus in Soft, Inflatable Robots
Nilles, Alexandra; Napp, Nils; Petersen, Kirstin Hagelskjaer

Sensing soft robots shape with cameras: an investigation on kinematics-aware SLAM
Rosi, Emanuele Riccardo; Stölzle, Maximilian; Solari, Fabio; Della Santina, Cosimo

Multimodal Proximity and Visuotactile Sensing With a Selectively Transmissive Soft Membrane
Yin, Jessica; Campbell, Gregory; Pikul, James; Yim, Mark

Soft artificial muscle with proprioceptive feedback: design, modeling and control
Moon, Hyungpil; Luong, Anh Tuan; Seo, Sungwon; Koo, Ja Choon; Choi, Hyouk Ryeol

A Hybrid Mechanism of Electromagnetic and Piezoresistive SensingUsing a Microfluidic Coil
Jeon, Byung Jun; Jeong, Bomin; Park, Yong-Lae

A Physical Simulator Integrated with Soft Sensors for Mastering Tissue Manipulation in Robotic Surgery
Galeazzi, Dario; Mariani, Andrea; Tognarelli, Selene; De Momi, Elena; Menciassi, Arianna

A Self-sensing Inverse Pneumatic Artificial Muscle
Lorenzon, Lucrezia; Beccali, Giulia; Maselli, Martina; Cianchetti, Matteo

Curvature and Contact Sensing with Optical Waveguides for Soft Silicone Pneumatic Actuator
ALJaber, Faisal; Hassan, Ahmed; Vitanov, Ivan; Althoefer, Kaspar

Grasping State and Object Estimation of a Flat Shell Gripper by Strain and Proximity Measurement using a Single Capacitance-Based Sensor
Matsuno, Takahiro; Miyagoshi, Rikuya; Shimizu, Keita; Ishihara, Mana; Watanabe, Shuya; Shintake, Jun; Althoefer, Kaspar; Hirai, Shinichi

In-Hand Object Recognition with Innervated Fiber Optic Spectroscopy for Soft Grippers
Hanson, Nathaniel; Hochsztein, Hillel; Vaidya, Akshay; Willick, Joel; Dorsey, Kristen; Padir, Taskin

Measuring Motion of Deformed Surfaces for Soft-bodied Robots/Animals with Multi-colored Markers
Hanaoka, Kohei; Shimizu, Masahiro; Shigaki, Shunsuke; Umedachi, Takuya

Open-loop printing of liquid metal for the low-cost rapid fabrication of soft sensors
Chen, Junda; Shih, Benjamin; Adibnazari, Iman; Park, Yong-Lae; Tolley, Michael T.

Punyo-1: Soft tactile-sensing upper-body robot for large object manipulation and physical human interaction
Goncalves, Aimee; Kuppuswamy, Naveen; Beaulieu, Andrew; Uttamchandani, Avinash; Tsui, Kate; Alspach, Alex

Rapid manufacturing of color-based hemispherical soft tactile fingertips
Scharff, Rob B.N.; Boonstra, Dirk-Jan; Willemet, Laurence; Lin, Xi; Wiertlewski, Michael

Real-Time Pressure Estimation and Localisation with Optical Tomography-inspired Soft Skin Sensor
Dawood, Abu Bakar; Denoun, Brice; Althoefer, Kaspar

Wrapped Haptic Display for Communicating Physical Robot Learning
Alvarez Valdivia, Antonio; Shailly, Ritish; Seth, Naman; Fuentes, Francesco; Losey, Dylan; Blumenschein, Laura

Y-Net: A Deep Convolutional Architecture for 3D Estimation of Contact Forces in Intracardiac Catheters
Fekri, Pedram; Khodashenas, Hamidreza; Zadeh, mehrdad; Dargahi, Javad; Lachapelle, Kevin; Cecere, Renzo

Whisker-based Haptic Perception System for Branch Detection in Dense Vegetation
Andresen, Leiv; Aucone, Emanuele; Mintchev, Stefano

A Modular Soft Robotic Arm with Embedded Tactile Sensors for Proprioception
Ouyang, Wenye; He, Liang; Albini, Alessandro; Maiolino, Perla

GelSight Fin Ray: Incorporating Tactile Sensing into a Soft Compliant Robotic Gripper
Liu, Sandra Q.; Adelson, Edward

Soft Morphing Interface for Tactile Feedback in Remote Palpation
Costi, Leone; Maiolino, Perla; Iida, Fumiya

FingerPrint: A 3-D Printed Soft Monolithic 4-Degree-of-Freedom Fingertip Haptic Device with Embedded Actuation
Zhakypov, Zhenishbek; Okamura, Allison M.

Magneto-Active Elastomer Filter for Tactile Sensing Augmentation through Online Adaptive Stiffening
Costi, Leone; Tagliabue, Arturo; Maiolino, Perla; Clemens, Frank; Iida, Fumiya