Miniaturized Soft Robotics: Recent Advances and Futures Opportunities

This review proposes an analysis of the scientific challenges of Soft Miniaturized Robots, providing a map of the recent works in this emerging field.

The advent of precision 3D microprinting technologies enabling to build microstructures and micro-actuators based on soft polymers has opened a way to the development of soft miniaturized robotics in several fields: (i) some swimming soft microrobots actuated with an external field enable to explore high small channel for in vitro or in vivo applications; (ii) miniaturized soft robot based on artificial muscles find applications in in vivo exploration or in dexterous micromanipulation.

Placing at the crossroads of small-scale robotics and soft robotics, miniaturized soft robots have their own scientific paradigm, which we describe in this article. It requires to develop methods and technologies to design, actuate and fabricate this new type of miniature robots. The intrinsic nonlinear behavior of these robots requires advanced methods to model and control them.