{"type":"ScholarlyArticle","title":"Soft Robotics: The Next Generation of Intelligent Machines","authors":[{"name":"Rolf Pfeifer","slug":"rolf-pfeifer","given":"Rolf","family":"Pfeifer","affiliation":""},{"name":"Hugo Gravato Marques","slug":"hugo-gravato-marques","given":"Hugo Gravato","family":"Marques","affiliation":""},{"name":"Fumiya Iida","slug":"fumiya-iida","given":"Fumiya","family":"Iida","affiliation":""}],"abstract":"There has been an increasing interest in applying biological principles to the design and control of robots. Unlike industrial robots that are programmed to execute a rather limited number of tasks, the new generation of bio-inspired robots is expected to display a wide range of behaviours in unpredictable environments, as well as to interact safely and smoothly with human co-workers. In this article, we put forward some of the properties that will characterize these new robots: soft materials, flexible and stretchable sensors, modular and efficient actuators, self-organization and distributed control. We introduce a number of design principles; in particular, we try to comprehend the novel design space that now includes soft materials and requires a completely different way of thinking about control. We also introduce a recent case study of developing a complex humanoid robot, discuss the lessons learned and speculate about future challenges and perspectives.","doi":null,"url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/13","pdf":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/0013.pdf","markdown":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/13.md","bibtex":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/bibtex/13","volume":{"slug":"2013","title":"Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence","short_title":"IJCAI 2013","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2013/","year":2013,"location":"Beijing, China","dates":"3–9 August 2013","editors":"Francesca Rossi","isbn":"978-1-57735-633-2","publisher":"AAAI Press / International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence","doi_prefix":""},"section":null,"track":"","number":13,"pages":{"first":5,"last":10},"keywords":[],"videos":[],"references":[],"license_note":"Copyright International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence."}