Bio-Inspired Soft Robotics
Or, The Future is Squishy
Why Bio-Inspired?
Nature is incredible. Organisms can adapt to fit the most extreme environments and
have extremely specific niches. Life can exist on the highest peaks of the tallest mountains and
in the deepest depths of the oceans, in the coldest, purest ice at the poles of the Earth and in
the hottest, most toxic volcanos. These incredibly diverse environments have sometimes led to
creatures looking very different from each other; Himalayan birds have very little in common
with the sea cucumbers that grow on the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and Antarctic
penguins could not be mistaken for the flamingos that live in the volcanic Lake Natron.
Organisms can also adapt based on the actions of humans. When the Chernobyl
accident happened, no living thing was built to live in the surrounding environment, but fifty
years post-disaster a type of fungus was discovered that converts radiation into energy for
itself, and dozens of animal species have flourished despite relatively new toxicity. Pets,
livestock, and edible plants have been through thousands of years of selective breeding to
create organisms that fit human needs. When telegraphs replaced homing pigeons as a means
of sending messages over long distances quickly, the birds switched from being under human
care to existing as urban scavengers, switching their natural environment from rocky cliffs to
manmade skyscrapers.
While organisms can take hundreds or even thousands of years to adapt to their
surroundings, engineers can create robots to complete specific tasks in a fraction of the time.
When engineers use biological designs as a blueprint for their innovation, much of the trial and
error required to make a thing has already been done; a designer knows that something shaped
like a fish will have much of its functionality if similar materials to those which make up that fish
are used.
Bio-inspired designs did not take off in the past because soft materials are harder to
work with than their alternatives. Mass production requires parts that can be made into very
specific shapes so harder and stiffer materials like metal, wood, and plastic are often the
standard for engineering designs. When you create a bird made of metal, gears, and circuit
boards, it will be much heavier than its living counterpart, so planes don’t look much like birds.
Submarines and whales look vaguely similar, but while a whale swims by moving their tail up
and down to conserve energy, submarines need to have fewer moving parts for stability and to
ensure air stays inside the submarine, so they are simply pushed forward by the motion of their
propellors.
Recent developments in materials science have made it possible to build complex
structures out of materials more similar to those that make up organisms. And now that a
robot’s “muscles” can be made from materials with similar properties to living ones, engineers
are taking advantage of this. A robot that is squishy will be lighter, more flexible, and able to
change shape better than a classic metallic robot. Often, these benefits outweigh extra
manufacturing costs for many applications where these traits are the main design goal; after all,
storing an inflatable soft robot like Baymax from the Disney movie Big Hero 6 would take up
much less space than a hard robot the same size as his fully inflated form.
Soft robots are the next robotics revolution. They are being tested as wearable
interfaces, for medical applications, and in search and rescue in labs, but will soon be available
to the general public on an unprecedented scale. They can be as simply elegant as an inflatable
tube with a camera on its end to as complex as 3D printed octopus with a chemical circuit
board. Since these bots change shape under pressure, they can be much more adaptable and
durable than classic hard robots, in some cases diving to deeper pressures than submarines and
able to be run over by cars without any signs of damage. This is the future, and it looks very
huggable.
Aquatic Shapeshifters
At the bottom of the South China Sea, a brilliantly white winged shape glides through
turquoise waters looking more like it is flying than swimming. Its wings flap slowly like
shrugging shoulders as it travels with the current over three kilometers (about two miles) down
below.1
However, this is not one of many fish that call this sea home, but instead a very squishy
robot. In many ways, it bears similarities to the lumpy sea snail that inspired its creators, with
its bulky head and thin pectoral fins, but there is a little more grace to its shape and strength in
the materials that make up its body.1 Its internal components are even distributed in a similar
way to the bones of a snailfish so that when it compresses, they do not damage each other. 1 As
the robot wanders deeper and deeper, the team of scientists and engineers from Zhejiang
University who designed it prepare for their creation’s ultimate test: survival in the deepest
parts of the Mariana Trench.
The ocean is a dangerous place for a hard robot. Water and electronics generally should
not mix, but when you add in the frigid temperatures and high pressures of the bottom of the
seas, most hard robots cannot stand the stress of the environment. Even submarines and
exploratory drones built with these specifications in mind have maximum depth and minimum
temperature specifications that do not allow these machines access to the true extremes of the
Earth. These are incredibly expensive devices, so even the promise of scientific discovery is not
enough to risk their destruction.
Aquatic soft robots, on the other hand, can get around these restrictions. When
designers create hard structures, they try to create them to work until an extreme limitation is
reached, at which point there will be system failure. Durability is optimized here, but there is
very little flexibility. In contrast, soft robots made of recently developed elastics, silicone,
polymers, and even fabrics will change shape under pressure, so they can keep working and
bounce back after stress instead of needing repairs. 1,2 This means there is a lot of potential for
autonomous bots that will be able to just keep swimming past the point where more standard
hard robots will be crushed.1,2
When the robot is taken to the Mariana Trench, it is not to float freely in the intense
currents there. While these engineers know that their bot will not change shape when under
pressure, there is concern over whether the result of years of work could get swept away by
the tides or taken by a predator.1 So, the bot is securely attached to an exploratory deep-sea
lander with a camera, then tossed off the side to fall freely in the dark water until it reaches the
bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest point on Earth nearly eleven kilometers (about seven
miles) below the surface.1,3 Here, temperatures are only just above freezing and the pressure is
immense.3 Eight tons per square inch push down on the little robot, a thousand times more
force than what it felt sitting on the boat it took to get there.3 Its goal is survival now, to keep
flapping as long as it can without being crushed like a tin can or submarine would be at this
depth.1
And when it lands, the robot manages to flap its silicone wings. It stares the void in the
face and shrugs back. But this robot is not meant to shrug forever, so its motion eventually
slows as the robot’s constant deformation lasts a little too long. While the bot is able to
function for 45 minutes, it loses its fight with the depths, a sacrifice its engineers hope to learn
from as they build an improved robotic fish that might be able to travel the extreme currents
that they were not willing to risk losing their first robotic fish to. 1 Only five humans have ever
reached this point in custom, partially soft submersibles, so the robot is in good but lonely
company until the next soft robot fish can join it.3
Another multidisciplinary team at Harvard is working to make an aquatic soft robot that
is even squishier. Their Octobot is the first robot made entirely of soft parts and liquids, so
there is almost no limit to how much it can change shape.4 There are no hard circuits or rigid
batteries within the bot because of chemical “inks” contained in its tiny arteries. 4 Hydrogen
peroxide and platinum react easily to create gas in the bot, resulting in a change in pressure
that works as a pneumatic system that creates enough energy to let Octobot wiggle
autonomously. 5
While the design of Octobot is very simple and small, the use of recently developed
manufacturing processes means that newer improved versions can be very easily designed and
created.4,5 Octobot’s body is molded out of a type of polymer known as elastomer that
stretches under extreme force instead of tearing and easily bounces back to its initial shape
after the force is gone.5 Then, a new type of 3D printing known as embedded 3D printing is used
to add in all of the Octobot’s inks.5 Finally, water is used to “auto-evacuate” the system,
creating channels for the inks to flow through.5 These processes require exact movements in
manufacturing that would not have been possible a decade ago. 5
This proof of concept could definitely lead to more advanced entirely soft robots in the
future that will be able to fully take advantage of soft robots’ abilities to withstand extreme
conditions and keep operating. While classic hard robots are really not well optimized for the
ocean, these advances in soft robotics point towards a future of squishier, more adaptable
aquatic designs.
A Simple Plantoid
A staple scene of the nature documentary is a time lapse of a plant, showing it slowly
but surely grow its stalk up towards light and its roots deeper in search of water. The narrator
says something about how most plants do not live or grow on the same time scale as humans,
but they are incredibly efficient in their growth as they seek out light and water as they try to
move away from the ground.
But there are also plants and fungi that can quickly react to stimuli; a Venus Flytrap will
snap shut when it senses pressure to try to catch its prey and Mimosa leaves shrink away from
touch to try to convince herbivores that they are not worth eating. A group of researchers at
the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Pisa, Italy has created a soft robot they call Plantoid that
mimics this movement.6,7 The robot consists of roots, a trunk, and active leaves, all made of soft
materials that are similar to the biomatter that makes up plants. 6,7
Since plants move from nerve synapse-like electrical pulses and movement of water, the
bot similarly uses hydraulics for motion via electric pulses of electrodes, as well as springs that
mimic structural shifting.7,8 It can sense gravity, heat, light, and humidity just like plants as well. 7
However, it uses an accelerometer and other mechanical equivalents of the biological systems
that plants utilize.7 The water sensors in Plantoid’s roots were specially created for it using
chemical and electrical receptors to detect any change in humidity. 7
Plantoid is incredibly well-suited for the same things roots and vines evolved for: soil
exploration and wrapping around objects.6 Since its roots are designed to detect these sorts of
changes and move to where conditions are optimal, it can seek out water and follow it. 7 The
active leaves are designed to sense when it bumps into things and wrap around them for
support as it grows up towards the light.7
Just like vines, Plantoid moves very slowly. But there is potential to use many of
concepts that allow both Plantoid and plants to move to create something that can go much
faster. A team at the University of California, Santa Barbara has made a soft robot that, while
inspired by vines, moves exponentially faster than any type of plant. 9,10 It can take in new
matter to grow, navigate towards light through obstacles, and possibly even save lives. 9,10,11 It is,
however, essentially just a really long balloon.
When balloons are inflated to a certain pressure, they are incredibly malleable; a
balloon animal requires dozens of twists for an artist to make it a certain shape, but if it is filled
properly then all that man-handling will not pop its rubber casing. Instead of rubber, this soft
robot is made of polyethylene like metallic balloons from a grocery store and weather
balloons.9 Polyethylene is cheap, so it will be very easy to mass produce this. 11 The material
change from rubber to plastic allows the robot to hold up against wear and tear even better
even with its thickness of about 65 micrometers.10 Since this a little thinner than a human hair,
balloon casing that is not yet inflated is stored compactly within the structure, allowing for
hundreds of meters of extra tubing to turn into balloon growth. 9,10,11
The mechanism behind the soft robot’s growth is actually really simple. There is a pump
with a power source in the base of the bot that holds on to one end of the tube. 9,10,11 Since the
other end of the tubing is stuffed inside itself, as the air creates more pressure, casing inside
the balloon is pushed to the outside.9,10,11 At the other end is a camera attached to a sleeve that
is pushed by the tube or on an external frame that locks on to the central part of the robot. 10,11
This end is where the bot grows, with latches in each quadrant that the person steering the
robot can choose to activate via pressure, snagging that end on itself.10 This leads to growth
only in certain directions when required so the robot can turn up, down, left, or right. 10,11 Some
versions of this tube-like robot used software to make the robot grow towards the light it
senses from its camera instead of through user input, making this the first light-sensitive soft
robotic plant as it predates the Plantoid.10,11
Since the bot grows instead of moving, when it encounters trouble as long as at least
most of the pressure from the air stays within it, it can keep growing. The soft robot can travel
through spikes and over sticky surfaces without needing additional pressure. 10,11 Since the robot
is airtight and the plastic is very light this version can travel above the surface of water but
when substituted for something denser and water instead of air it can travel below the
surface.10 It can grow through any gap larger than the uninflated, stored part of the balloon and
keep growing past that point at its full thickness and at normal speed.10,11 Internal rollers allow
the tube to deflate and retract through most of these environments so the robot can be
reused.11
There are many possible applications for a tube that lengthens with or without a camera
on its end. The outside shape can be permanently set with tape to make helix shape for an
expandable radio antenna or to have built in curves so steering is unnecessary. 11 When the tube
is wider, it can easily lift large and heavy objects because the weight is distributed over the now
large surface area of the bot.11 Since pressure is commonly measured in PSI, or pounds per
square inch, if the inflatable part is two square feet a person can be easily lifted using only 1 PSI
of pressure, without any strain on the pump.11 A version of the robot can also dig through sand
easily because it sprays air in the direction of its movement and it is so fast that the particles
around it “fluidize”, or act like a fluid instead of a solid.11
Some of these applications have life-saving potential. When air is substituted by water
as a source of pressure, the tube can become a steerable or autonomous fire hose; by switching
out the camera for a thermal one it could theoretically fight fires on its own. 11 It is excellent for
search and rescue applications and archeological research since it can get into spaces too
narrow for someone to navigate.11 Intubation, or the insertion of a breathing tube into the
trachea of a patient who is unable to breath, can be made safer and faster by using something
like this design that is built to block off the gastrointestinal tract and immediately start sending
air to the lungs.11
Just as plants are incredibly versatile, the possible uses for plant-inspired robots are
endless. Any system that needs to move towards what it is built to sense can benefit from using
biological systems as inspiration like these soft robots have, since they result in simple, elegant,
and efficient designs.
One Word: Plastics
There is so much potential in the field of soft robotics. As new manufacturing processes
for squishier materials and types of polymers are created, the endless possibilities afforded by
these types of designs will only increase. Improved precision and cheaper manufacturing costs
for these new processes will lead to even smaller systems and popularization of the more
complex entirely soft robots like the Octobot.
Combining these separate advances will also lead to incredible progress; if the fully soft
system of the Octobot was a part of the robotic fish built to shrug in the Mariana Trench,
perhaps the deformation of its body would not have stopped it so early, and maybe if the tube
robot was the mechanism that lowered it less damage would have been sustained from the fall.
Adding the new humidity sensors from Plantoid to the tube robot could help it in autonomous
burrowing and firefighting applications.
This progress will also have incredible consumer applications; imagine the technology
behind the tube robot leading to the creation of Baymax as a walking, fully autonomous
character at Disneyland or something like the Octobot as a fidget toy that responds to human
interaction. Inflatable tube robots could make great drain cleaners and could be incredibly
helpful when changing a tire or lifting furniture. There are endless applications for these
flexible, deformable, and extendible robots.
For robotics, the future is once again plastics. But this time, they will be squishy.
References
1. Tsakiris D. Fish-inspired soft robot survives a trip to the deepest part of the ocean. The
Conversation. 2021 Apr 27. https://theconversation.com/fish-inspired-soft-robot-
survives-a-trip-to-the-deepest-part-of-the-ocean-159734
2. Rossiter J, Hauser H. Is Soft Robotics the next industrial revolution? IEEE Robotics and
Automation Magazine. 23(3):17–20.
https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/files/94738212/IEEE_RAM_17_06_2016_JR3
.pdf. doi:10.1109/MRA.2016.2588018
3. The Mariana Trench. National Geographic. 2012.
http://www.deepseachallenge.com/the-expedition/mariana-trench/#:~:text=While
%20thousands%20of%20climbers%20have,the%20Pacific%20Ocean's%20Mariana
%20Trench.
4. Truby RL, Wehner M, Sanders LK, Burrows L. Octobot: A Soft, Autonomous Robot.
https://wyss.harvard.edu/media-post/octobot-a-soft-autonomous-robot/
5. Wehner M, Truby RL, Fitzgerald DJ, Mosadegh B, Whitesides GM, Lewis JA, Wood RJ. An
integrated design and fabrication strategy for entirely soft, autonomous robots. Nature.
2016;536:451–455. https://escholarship.org/content/qt1182x4zm/qt1182x4zm.pdf.
doi:10.1038/nature19100
6. Micu A. Researchers design the first soft robot that moves like a plant. ZME Science.
2020 May 31. https://www.zmescience.com/science/soft-robot-plant-movement-
8235362/#:~:text=Italian%20researchers%20have%20devised%20the,that%20moves
%20just%20like%20plants.&text=The%20tendril%2Dlike%20bot%20is,plants%20in
%20order%20to%20move.
7. Sadeghi A, Mondini A, Del Dottore E, Mattoli V, Beccai L, Taccola S, Lucarotti C, Totaro
M, Mazzolai B. A plant-inspired robot with soft differential bending capabilities.
Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 2016;12(1).
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/12/1/015001/pdf.
doi:10.1088/1748-3190/12/1/015001
8. Sinibaldi E, Mazzolai B. Plant-Inspired Actuation Strategies for Biorobotics. 2020.
https://i-rim.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/I-RIM_2020_paper_108.pdf
9. Blumenschein LH, Okamura AM, Hawkes EW. Modeling of Bioinspired Apical Extension
in a Soft Robot. In: 6th International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems.
2017. https://www.vinerobots.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/LM2017_Final-3.pdf.
doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63537-8_45
10. Hawkes EW, Blumenschein LH, Greer JD, Okamura AM. A soft robot that navigates its
environment through growth. Science Robotics. 2017;2(8).
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10032226. doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aan3028
11. Veritasium. This Unstoppable Robot Could Save Your Life. 2021 Apr 16.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qevIIQHrJZg