[sova]

This is tremendous and probably what all robots that interact with humans will look like in the next 50-100. Affordable flexible membranes able to grasp and grapple with our real world, and also gentle enough (when programmed correctly) to not harm humans and other beings, this is the future right here. Very exciting. Focus on the information and less on the headline, guys.

[gene-h]

I am extremely doubtful of this future. A big part of the reason we are considering soft robots today is safety, that if the robot hits a human it won't hurt them. If we can make robots smart enough that they never hit humans this is no longer a problem. Another reason is making things compliant so that we can grip objects because we have yet to figure out grasping. If we solve grasping, we no longer need compliant grippers.

In addition, pneumatics which this work focused on, are probably not the future. Pneumatics are not that efficient, are noisy, and are limited by the compressibility of air. The compressibility of air limits how fast these devices can actuate, their stiffness, and even how efficient pneumatic systems can get. Efficiency alone might be enough to encourage future robot makers to use something else.

Stiffness is another compelling argument against both pneumatic robots and soft robots. The max rate at which a robot can do stuff and react to things is dictated by its resonant frequency and mass. Sure we can make our robot very light, but we aren't going to be able to change the mass of things we desire the robot to manipulate. So it is still desirable to have robots with higher stiffness.

Really, a number of different technologies could make this obsolete within 50 years. For example, electric artificial muscles, slightly better rotary electric actuators along with rapid robotic assembly enabling stuff to have huge number of moving parts, or even advanced nanotechnology.