Robotics: Science preceding science fiction
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Introduction: A shift in vision in robotics Well before robotics became a scientific research field in its own right, synthetic machines that could live alongside humans were present in our imaginations (Figure 1).1–19 The myths of the Pygmalion or the Golem20 in Greek and Jewish folklore already mention human-like creatures arising from magic or the power of the gods. Since the industrial revolution and the resulting spread of the metal industry, metallic machines have inspired utopic worlds with self-driving transportation such as the steam Elephant in Jules Verne’s The Steam House1 or where conscious machines rule, such as in Metropolis.2 With a Western European view—which might depart from Eastern cultures20,21—it is noticeable that as fictitious robots gain in autonomy, they start threatening human society. The Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang, a beautiful—yet heartless—metallic robot, drives the rebellion of workers to ruin Metropolis;2 Cybernauts,3 or space robots4 are used as killing machines; and the Terminator is sent to kill and terminate humanity.5 In contrast, the goal of developing technological robots in industry is to help society and improve the lives of human beings. Low-skilled and repetitive manual labor has slowly been replaced by machines in manufacturing plants;6 smart machines7 and exoskeletons8 have been developed to accelerate the rehabilitation of injured patients; and home robots have taken over cleaning tasks.9 Beyond substituting humans
in low-skill and tedious tasks, robots have also been created to explore areas forbidden to humans, such as space10 or the deep sea.22 Lightweight and deformable robots that can interact closely with humans have emerged as soft robots at the end of the 20th century thanks to structural properties close to those found in nature. This is well illustrated by the booming number of publications in soft robotics.23 However, soft and kind robots in Western fiction are only slowly emerging. The most well-known is Baymax, featured by Walt Disney in 2014.11 This shift from the threatening, gray, cold, and heartless metallic robots22 toward friendly ones is coincident with the use of soft materials, characterized by conformability, colors, and constant adaptation to the environment. Bridges between material properties and our emotions have indeed been reported in several studies,24,25 as supported by the use of soft robots in health care and medical applications, such as e-skins26 and targeted drug delivery and surgery.27 It is interesting to note that this opening of the mind came after advances in research and science. However, despite the remarkable progress in soft robotics research, there is still a strong demand for innovation for more practical issues. Indeed, to explore a larger panel of applications, we still need to improve the motion capabilities of existing soft robots to enhance speed and control, to improve their resilience
Hortense Le Ferrand, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang T
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