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Shaping the future of robotics through materials innovation

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1582–1587 (2021)Cite this article

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New classes of functional soft materials show promise to revolutionize robotics. Now materials scientists must focus on realizing the predicted performance of these materials and developing effective and robust interfaces to integrate them into highly functional robotic systems that have a positive impact on human life.

Today, a typical robot consists of hard materials such as metals or rigid plastics and is driven by electromagnetic motors. Materials science has greatly contributed to the success of these robots in industry by developing materials that make them stronger, lighter, stiffer and more precise. However, only few examples exist in which robots have left the factory floor, because operating in unstructured environments requires a level of versatility and adaptability that is difficult to achieve with typical robots based on hard materials — we believe that these intrinsic problems can only be overcome with new types of adaptable, compliant robot bodies and new control concepts supported by machine learning. Some problems — such as seamlessly interfacing the human body with a lifelike active prosthesis — can only be solved by using functional soft materials. We, therefore, believe that the future of robotics is (at least partially) soft, and that materials science will be at the core of robotics innovation.

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Fig. 1: Materials innovations that will shape the future of robotics.
Fig. 2: Realizing the predicted performance of emerging technologies.
Fig. 3: Interfaces between components inside a robot and between a robot and its environment.

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Acknowledgements

P.R. and C.K. acknowledge funding by the Max Planck Society, Germany. Y.K. acknowledges funding through scholarships from ILJU Academy and Culture Foundation and MIT School of Engineering MathWorks Fellowship. X.Z. acknowledges funding from the National Institutes of Health (no. 1R01HL153857-01) and the National Science Foundation (no. EFRI-1935291).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robotic Materials Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Philipp Rothemund & Christoph Keplinger

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yoonho Kim & Xuanhe Zhao

  3. Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Ronald H. Heisser & Robert F. Shepherd

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Xuanhe Zhao

  5. Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Christoph Keplinger

  6. Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Christoph Keplinger

Authors
  1. Philipp Rothemund
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  2. Yoonho Kim
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  3. Ronald H. Heisser
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  4. Xuanhe Zhao
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  5. Robert F. Shepherd
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  6. Christoph Keplinger
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Contributions

C.K. developed the concept of the article. P.R. and C.K. led and coordinated the writing of the article. All authors contributed to the content and writing of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christoph Keplinger.

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Competing interests

P.R. and C.K. are listed as inventors of patents that cover fundamentals and basic designs of HASEL actuators as well as methods of fabrication. Y.K. and X.Z. are listed as inventors of patents that cover fundamental principles and fabrication techniques for 3D-printed magnetic soft actuators and magnetically steerable soft continuum robots. X.Z. is a co-founder of SanaHeal Inc., a start-up company commercializing bioadhesives. R.F.S. is listed as an inventor for patents regarding stretchable lightguide-based optical sensing platforms, and is a co-founder of Organic Robotics Corporation, which licenses these patents. C.K. is a co-founder of Artimus Robotics, a start-up company commercializing HASEL actuators.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Materials thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Rothemund, P., Kim, Y., Heisser, R.H. et al. Shaping the future of robotics through materials innovation. Nat. Mater. 20, 1582–1587 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01158-1

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