Dear Colleagues,

Soft robotics and actuators show great promise by enabling the control of machines and systems that rigid robots and actuators cannot achieve. Their flexibility and adaptability make them ideal for interacting with delicate objects and living organisms in complex and dynamic environments. Typically, soft actuators require a control signal and an energy source to function. These control signals cause the actuators to deform, converting input energy into mechanical motion used to operate machines or systems. Various stimuli, such as electrical or magnetic fields, heat, light, humidity, pH, chemicals, hydraulics, and pressure, can be used to activate the actuators. Soft actuators are typically made of stimuli-responsive materials with different mechanisms. For instance, ionic electroactive soft actuators bend when ions rearrange in response to external electrical fields. Photoactuators can deform through mechanisms such as thermal expansion/contraction, humidity adsorption changes, and molecular configuration variations. These stimuli-responsive soft actuators offer numerous advantages, including lightness, flexibility, compliance, complex motion capabilities, safety, low noise, minimal vibration, space efficiency, high degrees of freedom, and adaptability to environmental changes, which position them as potential replacements for rigid counterparts in various devices.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present those advanced technologies that are useful for the further development of soft actuators for real-world applications.

Dr. Mahato Manmatha
Dr. Jaehwan Kim
Guest Editors

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• IPMC
• EAP
• photo and thermally active actuators
• magnetoactive actuators
• SMA