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Hauptverfasser: Stölzle, Maximilian, Pagliarani, Niccolò, Stella, Francesco, Hughes, Josie, Laschi, Cecilia, Rus, Daniela, Cianchetti, Matteo, Della Santina, Cosimo, Zardini, Gioele
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03761
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author Stölzle, Maximilian
Pagliarani, Niccolò
Stella, Francesco
Hughes, Josie
Laschi, Cecilia
Rus, Daniela
Cianchetti, Matteo
Della Santina, Cosimo
Zardini, Gioele
author_facet Stölzle, Maximilian
Pagliarani, Niccolò
Stella, Francesco
Hughes, Josie
Laschi, Cecilia
Rus, Daniela
Cianchetti, Matteo
Della Santina, Cosimo
Zardini, Gioele
contents Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Yet, their development is challenging because it requires integrating materials, geometry, actuation, and autonomy into complex mechatronic systems. Despite progress, the field struggles to balance task-specific performance with broader factors like durability and manufacturability - a difficulty that we find is compounded by traditional sequential design processes with their lack of feedback loops. In this perspective, we review emerging co-design approaches that simultaneously optimize the body and brain, enabling the discovery of unconventional designs highly tailored to the given tasks. We then identify three key shortcomings that limit the broader adoption of such co-design methods within the soft robotics domain. First, many rely on simulation-based evaluations focusing on a single metric, while real-world designs must satisfy diverse criteria. Second, current methods emphasize computational modeling without ensuring feasible realization, risking sim-to-real performance gaps. Third, high computational demands limit the exploration of the complete design space. Finally, we propose a holistic co-design framework that addresses these challenges by incorporating a broader range of design values, integrating real-world prototyping to refine evaluations, and boosting efficiency through surrogate metrics and model-based control strategies. This holistic framework, by simultaneously optimizing functionality, durability, and manufacturability, has the potential to enhance reliability and foster broader acceptance of soft robotics, transforming human-robot interactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_03761
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Soft yet Effective Robots via Holistic Co-Design
Stölzle, Maximilian
Pagliarani, Niccolò
Stella, Francesco
Hughes, Josie
Laschi, Cecilia
Rus, Daniela
Cianchetti, Matteo
Della Santina, Cosimo
Zardini, Gioele
Robotics
Soft robots promise inherent safety via their material compliance for seamless interactions with humans or delicate environments. Yet, their development is challenging because it requires integrating materials, geometry, actuation, and autonomy into complex mechatronic systems. Despite progress, the field struggles to balance task-specific performance with broader factors like durability and manufacturability - a difficulty that we find is compounded by traditional sequential design processes with their lack of feedback loops. In this perspective, we review emerging co-design approaches that simultaneously optimize the body and brain, enabling the discovery of unconventional designs highly tailored to the given tasks. We then identify three key shortcomings that limit the broader adoption of such co-design methods within the soft robotics domain. First, many rely on simulation-based evaluations focusing on a single metric, while real-world designs must satisfy diverse criteria. Second, current methods emphasize computational modeling without ensuring feasible realization, risking sim-to-real performance gaps. Third, high computational demands limit the exploration of the complete design space. Finally, we propose a holistic co-design framework that addresses these challenges by incorporating a broader range of design values, integrating real-world prototyping to refine evaluations, and boosting efficiency through surrogate metrics and model-based control strategies. This holistic framework, by simultaneously optimizing functionality, durability, and manufacturability, has the potential to enhance reliability and foster broader acceptance of soft robotics, transforming human-robot interactions.
title Soft yet Effective Robots via Holistic Co-Design
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03761