Soft yet Effective Robots via Holistic Co-Design

TL;DR

This paper reviews and proposes a holistic co-design framework for soft robots that integrates materials, geometry, actuation, and autonomy to improve performance, durability, manufacturability, and real-world applicability.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive co-design approach that addresses current limitations by incorporating diverse evaluation criteria, real-world prototyping, and efficiency improvements.

Findings

Identifies key shortcomings in existing co-design methods.

Proposes a holistic framework integrating multiple design aspects.

Highlights potential for improved reliability and broader adoption.

Abstract

Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Yet, their development is challenging because it requires integrating materials, geometry, actuation, and autonomy into complex mechatronic systems. Despite progress, the field struggles to balance task-specific performance with broader factors like durability and manufacturability - a difficulty that we find is compounded by traditional sequential design processes with their lack of feedback loops. In this perspective, we review emerging co-design approaches that simultaneously optimize the body and brain, enabling the discovery of unconventional designs highly tailored to the given tasks. We then identify three key shortcomings that limit the broader adoption of such co-design methods within the soft robotics domain. First, many rely on simulation-based evaluations focusing on a single metric, while real-world designs must satisfy diverse criteria. Second, current methods emphasize computational modeling without ensuring feasible realization, risking sim-to-real performance gaps. Third, high computational demands limit the exploration of the complete design space. Finally, we propose a holistic co-design framework that addresses these challenges by incorporating a broader range of design values, integrating real-world prototyping to refine evaluations, and boosting efficiency through surrogate metrics and model-based control strategies. This holistic framework, by simultaneously optimizing functionality, durability, and manufacturability, has the potential to enhance reliability and foster broader acceptance of soft robotics, transforming human-robot interactions.