Tokyo College Lecture: “Soft Robotics”

Robotics is gaining increasing importance across a wide range of applications, including industrial production, agriculture, assistance to individuals and households, and medicine. However, its progress is still constrained by the mechanical basis of construction and operation. As the complexity and versatility of robotics is growing rapidly, it has resulted in high costs for development and production. Additionally, the weight and metallic nature of robots pose hazards in interactions with humans. These disadvantages can be radically reduced by the advent of “soft robotics”. In short, this technology replaces metal and mechanics with “soft” elastomeric materials and fluidics. In this lecture, Prof. Viovy presents and illustrates the potentialities of this emerging field with a few examples, and discusses its future and potential limitations.

Lecture 
Jean Louis VIOVY
(Tokyo College Professor, The University of Tokyo; Research Director Emeritus, CNRS-Institut Curie-IPGG)

Comment
ASAMA Hajime
(Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)

Moderator
Flavia BALDARI
(Project Researcher, Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo)