Review of soft-bodied robots

Being made of flexile materials, soft-bodied robots can change their size and shape in large range, and have wide potential applications in detection, exploration, succor and medicine. The researches on configuration, actuator, modeling and manufacturing processes for soft-bodied robots are summarized. Soft-bodied robots have been designed and built based on hydrostat skeletons or muscular hydrostats inspired by biology. The actuators utilized in them include physical actuators, i. e. shape memory alloys, pneumatic actuator, electroactive polymers, as well as chemical actuators which transform chemical energy into mechanical energy. The mechanical models of soft-bodied robots arecomplicated owing to both material and geometric nonlinearities, so they are mainly described approximately by modeling methods of hyper-redundant robots or experimentation. Processes are divided into three categories: soft robot body fabrication, actuators for soft robots and stretchable electronics. Various new manufacturing process