Liquid crystal elastomers will most likely never be used in humans because, in order to drive the phase transition (mematic mesogens going from isotopic to anisotropic phase) necessary for macro scale work, the LCE has to be heated well beyond 100C. Even in non-thermal contexts, you need kilovolts to influence a doped bulk LCE. I just don't see it happening.
Why do these kept getting made? I feel like I see some new soft robot every few months or so. Are they used to infiltrate past grates in a sewer security system and slide under lasers or something what is up with these???
> With their ability to shapeshift and manipulate delicate objects, soft robots could work as medical implants, deliver drugs inside the body and help explore dangerous environments.
I'm not sure that's a big strike against it yet. Kinda the whole point of engineering in academia is to work on hard things that are far from commercialization.
The fact that a product has not yet been created from a given technology does not mean the technology or the research itself is useless, or will not turn out to be useful in the long term. You can also learn a lot from research or development that does not ultimately work out.
>>"never once seen a productionalized version of these"
YET
Just because we have not YET seen one does not mean it should not be pursued.
Examples are endless, start with: 30 years ago, no one had seen a solar panel with 25% efficiency produced for less than $1/watt. Now, it is the most economical and fastest-growing and most sustainable energy source on the planet.
That argument is simply an argument against all efforts at making progress. Perhaps rethink making it?
You can't mix really strong robots with humans without barriers separating them. That's one reason humanoid robots won't sell. They're dangerous. Real robots in real factories that make real stuff can juggle car engines. And they can tear you limb from limb. So they work behind barriers and intrusion detection systems.
Disaster response is a lie researchers tell themselves when building military hardware. The purpose of such robots would be to e.g. burrow into the collapsed tunnels at Fordow and confirm the uranium is there. (Or, alternatively, burrow into military tunnels to identify targets.)
These phase transition motive architectures all suffer from the same issues of not enough precision with repeatable positioning, very low speed, and limited control over the shaping of force/torque curve.
Liquid crystal elastomers will most likely never be used in humans because, in order to drive the phase transition (mematic mesogens going from isotopic to anisotropic phase) necessary for macro scale work, the LCE has to be heated well beyond 100C. Even in non-thermal contexts, you need kilovolts to influence a doped bulk LCE. I just don't see it happening.
Why do these kept getting made? I feel like I see some new soft robot every few months or so. Are they used to infiltrate past grates in a sewer security system and slide under lasers or something what is up with these???
Because it's a really cool concept that a lot of engineers and researchers are excited about, despite the lack of practical applications.
Yes, sometimes that's all it takes.
and the the Dept of War can imagine creative enough uses for these things to keep funding them (it's how we got computers and the internet too)
https://www.bu.edu/biorobotics/icra10workshop/icra10workshop...
> A broad variety of serpentine and continuum robots have been developed for minimally invasive surgical applications.
Soft robotic grippers are also interesting because they allow you to grasp objects without complex touch/force sensors.
https://joaobuzzatto.com/kirigami-grippers/
We are soft robots (mostly flesh). The skeleton is a scaffold on which our muscles hang. It makes sense to try to replicate what works in biology.
Literally the first line of the article:
> With their ability to shapeshift and manipulate delicate objects, soft robots could work as medical implants, deliver drugs inside the body and help explore dangerous environments.
I think to OPs point, we keep hearing that same line and I've never once seen a productionalized version of these
I'm not sure that's a big strike against it yet. Kinda the whole point of engineering in academia is to work on hard things that are far from commercialization.
The fact that a product has not yet been created from a given technology does not mean the technology or the research itself is useless, or will not turn out to be useful in the long term. You can also learn a lot from research or development that does not ultimately work out.
>>"never once seen a productionalized version of these"
YET
Just because we have not YET seen one does not mean it should not be pursued.
Examples are endless, start with: 30 years ago, no one had seen a solar panel with 25% efficiency produced for less than $1/watt. Now, it is the most economical and fastest-growing and most sustainable energy source on the planet.
That argument is simply an argument against all efforts at making progress. Perhaps rethink making it?
https://xkcd.com/2128/
You can't mix really strong robots with humans without barriers separating them. That's one reason humanoid robots won't sell. They're dangerous. Real robots in real factories that make real stuff can juggle car engines. And they can tear you limb from limb. So they work behind barriers and intrusion detection systems.
Hence soft robots. They're safe. Also useless.
> Also useless
Grow some imagination
Disaster response is a lie researchers tell themselves when building military hardware. The purpose of such robots would be to e.g. burrow into the collapsed tunnels at Fordow and confirm the uranium is there. (Or, alternatively, burrow into military tunnels to identify targets.)
The first question a robotics investor will ask themselves is "will people want to have sex with it?"
Zeta Jones bot
These phase transition motive architectures all suffer from the same issues of not enough precision with repeatable positioning, very low speed, and limited control over the shaping of force/torque curve.
The only practical example are wax motors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_motor
This entire article is simply bad university lab PR.
There's this YouTube channel called "soiboi soft"[0] that is doing many experiments with air-powered soft robotics and microfluidics.
It's a pretty cool concept and might have interesting albeit niche applications.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@soiboisoft
Article with better quality video here https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-origami-robot-built-prin...
one step closer to Rudy Rucker's "piezoplastic" from his Ware series