Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gene-h 3129 days ago
I believe soft actuators have hidden costs. While the actuators themselves may be cheap, the valving and pumps may not be.
1 comments

Certainly. For what I said about the swarms to make sense, each robot must have a self-contained power source or be externally powered in a wholesale manner (generally by absorbing energy from the environment). For single (or few) robots though, you usually want the neat actuation mechanics and you're happy to pay the cost of the actuators and associated support hardware. The supporting hardware is always getting lighter and smaller though.