2021 marked the beginning of the SoftGrip project, so this article celebrates our 1-year celebration. Three hundred sixty-five days passed with in-depth research, interesting findings, and fruitful collaborations. Despite the COVID19 pandemic, the SoftGrip work managed to be present at conferences and be included in prestigious online publications.
First, in May 2021, a review of the actuation technologies for soft robot grippers and manipulators was published in the leading scientific, technical and medical journal Current Robotics Reports. The review addresses soft robotics and its current developments while providing specific references to the actuation technologies for soft robotic grippers and their potential applications.
The specific piece was primarily produced by Shadab Zaidi, Martina Maselli, Cecilia Laschi & Matteo Cianchetti from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSA).
Second, the Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens participated in the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2021), a top robotic conference for the scientific community and industry altogether. The accepted publication “Task Driven Skill Learning in a Soft-Robotic ArmTask Driven Skill Learning in a Soft-Robotic Armask Driven Skill Learning in a Soft-Robotic Arm” was produced by Paris Oikonomou, Athanasios Dometios, Mehdi Khamassi and Costas Tzafestas; presented live and accompanied by a video. This paper presented a novel model-free learning-based scheme that can be used to address particularly challenging issues related to the adaptive control of soft robotic manipulation mechanisms.
Last but not least, a SoftGrip article focusing on the “Embodied Intelligence in Soft Robotics Through Hardware Multifunctionality” was authored by Matteo Cianchetti from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and accepted by the open-access publisher Frontiers in Robotics and AI in November 2021. The extensive report showed the logic behind the SoftGrip project, supporting the development of robots with inherent flexibility enabled by their hardware components.
In a nutshell, the first year was a great starting point for the SoftGrip project. The second year has already begun, and the consortium is preparing exciting stuff that will be shared in time!
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