Computing with Soft Robots - Computerphile

Even the most impressive soft robots have an external control system. What if the software could be running on soft hardware? - Associate Professor Perla Maiolino explains the soft logic in soft robots.

ORI Soft Robots group:
Perla Maiolino (speaker)
Liang He
Sihan Wang (Demonstrator)
Francesco Grella
Peizhi Zhang
Oliver Shorthose




This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

[colinthomasson]

Lovely to see steam age technology in action, those spool valves were also known as double beat or equilibrium valves, you find them in beam engines and Victorian steam locomitives, they facilitate fine control against a high pressure difference by putting the high pressure above and below the valve

[TheDeanosaurus]

I came into the video thinking it was like a euphemism for a type of pattern but no, you legit mean soft robots lol. Great video.

[Kilroyan]

casually dropping "shrinking down to cellular size to use in Biology" as a stretch goal after talking about "handling of produce" first ... talk about burying the lede! fascinating area of research, would love to learn more on the subject.

[salmiakki]

I enjoy hearing an Italian accent for the very first time on this channel ☺️

[Skyfox]

That soft arm with the 3 fingers is just the prototype. In under a thousand years, that'll become the arms of Bender.

[feyisolaadejokun]

Personally feel soft robots have been around for a bit but trying to scale them is really hard…

[barrettvelker]

A clock based architecture would have a heartbeat!

[laurendoe]

Talking about soft robots that have valves makes me curious if heart valves for valve replacement can be printed.

[nmanbamboo]

The soft buttons remind me of the soft button console of the alien space jockey console from the movie Prometheus.

[RawPeds]

After 1 second of play: "She is italian".

[harriehausenman]

This kind of comupter could be interesting for future Venus missions!

[RobLang]

Very cool technology. I'd be interested to see how they implement closed loop control for those situations where the cool logic needs to change depending on world state.

Great video, thanks Computerphile!

[arlindbanushi]

Shunk already made electric actuated hands. Festo has also done something with pneumatics. For embedded sensors at least, Molex has already something in their catalog. It seams that the industry isn't that far away from University research. At least in this case.

[delledut]

Does the stickers on the monitor compromize the lab security or is it offline?

[souravresearch]

Great. Can you please post of the research paper If it's available. Thanks

[AraCarrano]

Damn I miss Shirts like that from the 90's

[MichaelKingsfordGray]

Much of these problems were solved in 1923, by Alfred Munro. Nearly 100 years ago!

[pranavsreedhar]

fantastic soft circuits... but a hybrid would be a more realistic approach... most animals have some form of electric signals in them... but we do have plants that functions without electricity(?) so a pure approach is also necessary! great job!

[ARVash]

I realized that on Venus you could make soft robotics out of metal lol. Pretty cool.

[amaarquadri]

This type of technology seems like it might be useful for a Venus rover, where the harsh conditions quickly destroy electronics.