🗎“Soft robots have opened an emerging research direction in robotics due to their promising performance enabled by functional materials and fabrication technology. recent progress of functional materials has brought soft robots with advanced functionalities and greatly expanded their potential applications in various fields. biomedical applications have attracted significant research interests and become an emerging field. particular trends have been shifted to the submillimeter-scale biomedical soft robots and the integrated manipulatable devices with well controllability and compatibility. functionalities of these biomedical soft robots are dominated by nanomaterials and nanotechnology. however, lack of study has overviewed the promising development progress of functional nanomaterials and advanced nanotechnology in soft robots for biomedical applications. it is worthwhile to review such an important but not yet fully exposed research trend. to address such research gap, this review article focuses on the recent achievements, technological challenges and future trends of the nanomaterials and nanotechnology used in biomedical soft robots. we provide a state-of-the-art review on the current progress while mainly focusing on explaining the mechanism and functionality of the soft robots with respect to the nanomaterials and nanotechnology. in the end, we summarize the main challenges of biomedical soft robots and envision the future trends by outlooking the development of advanced nanomaterials and nanotechnology.”

🗎“The soft robot is a new type of robot with strong adaptability, good pliability, and high flexibility. today, it is widely used in the fields of bioengineering, disaster rescue, industrial production, medical services, exploration, and surveying. in this paper, the typical driven methods, 3d printing technologies, applications, the existed problems, and the development prospects for soft robots are summarized comprehensively. firstly, the driven methods and materials of the soft robot are introduced, including fluid driven, smart materials driven, chemical reaction driven, a twisted and coiled polymer actuator, and so on. secondly, the basic principles and characteristics of mainstream 3d printing technologies for soft materials are introduced, including fdm, diw, ip, sla, sls, and so on. then, current applications of soft robots, such as bionic structures, gripping operations, and medical rehabilitation are described. finally, the problems existing in the development of soft robots, such as the shortage of 3d printable soft materials, efficient and effective manufacturing of soft robots, shortage of smart soft materials, efficient use of energy, the realization of complex motion forms of soft robot, control action accuracy and actual kinematic modeling are summarized. based on the above, some suggestions are put forward pertinently, and the future development and applications of the soft robot are prospected.”

🗎“Broad adoption of magnetic soft robotics is hampered by the sophisticated field paradigms for their manipulation and the complexities in controlling multiple devices. furthermore, high-throughput fabrication of such devices across spatial scales remains challenging. here, advances in fiber-based actuators and magnetic elastomer composites are leveraged to create 3d magnetic soft robots controlled by unidirectional fields. thermally drawn elastomeric fibers are instrumented with a magnetic composite synthesized to withstand strains exceeding 600%. a combination of strain and magnetization engineering in these fibers enables programming of 3d robots capable of crawling or walking in magnetic fields orthogonal to the plane of motion. magnetic robots act as cargo carriers, and multiple robots can be controlled simultaneously and in opposing directions using a single stationary electromagnet. the scalable approach to fabrication and control of magnetic soft robots invites their future applications in constrained environments where complex fields cannot be readily deployed.”

🗎“Miniature soft robots are mobile devices, which are made of smart materials that can be actuated by external stimuli to realize their desired functionalities. here, the key advancements and challenges of the locomotion producible by miniature soft robots in micro- to centimeter length scales are highlighted. it is highly desirable to endow these small machines with dexterous locomotive gaits as it enables them to easily access highly confined and enclosed spaces via a noninvasive manner. if miniature soft robots are able to capitalize this unique ability, they will have the potential to transform a vast range of applications, including but not limited to, minimally invasive medical treatments, lab-on-chip applications, and search-and-rescue missions. the gaits of miniature soft robots are categorized into terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial locomotion. except for the centimeter-scale robots that can perform aerial locomotion, the discussions in this report are centered around soft robots that are in the micro- to millimeter length scales. under each category of locomotion, prospective methods and strategies that can improve their gait performances are also discussed. this report provides critical analyses and discussions that can inspire future strategies to make miniature soft robots significantly more agile.”