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NRC artikel over vakgebied ‘Soft Robotics’

The team of the HTSF Soft Robotics programme are working on soft robots that are safer and better equipped to function in a human environment. This is a new specialisation that involves many fields of expertise.

The latest research output of the 4TU Soft Robotics consortium can be found on this page.

Michaël Wiertlewski (TT in CoR-TUD) and Aimée Sakes (TT in BME-TUD) have been awarded a cohesion grant by the faculty of 3mE of Delft University of Technology. The main aim of the project is to control the frictional properties of the catheter in real-time, using ultrasonic friction modulation, to anchor a compliant catheter inside the body. The body of the catheter will exhibit high-friction with the biological tissues by default, which provides support to maintain a certain position or to operate with high forces without buckling, and can become near frictionless by engaging the ultrasonic actuation during insertion and removal of the catheter.

Last Tuesday, we presented the plans of the Soft Robotics programme to about 150 representatives from academia, industry and government. This was done in the kick-off meeting to the 4TU funding initiative “High-tech for a sustainable future”, held in The Hague. This initiative provided funding for tens of tenure track positions, to enable high-tech solutions for societal challenges such as health, safety, and food. Five research programs were funded by the 4TU federation in this context, and we are proud our Soft Robotics programme is one of them. The Soft Robotics research program lasts for 4 years, unites the efforts of the four technical universities in the Netherlands, and is led by colleague Herman van der Kooij.

Xi Lin, PhD student under the guidance of Michael Wiertlewski, won the best paper award at the Soft Haptics workshop that took place during ICRA 2019 in Montreal, Canada. The paper is part of the special issue on Soft Haptic Interaction: Modeling, Design, and Application in the Robotics and Automation Letters and presents a novel method for measuring the distribution of the friction force over the contact area. This soft tactile sensor offers unique measurements that will drive the next generation of control strategy for robotic grasping and perception.