Offers a comprehensive review of the research and development of mechanically responsive materials and their applications in soft robots

Mechanically Responsive Materials for Soft Robotics offers an authoritative guide to the current state of mechanically responsive materials for the development of soft robotics. With contributions from an international panel of experts, the book examines existing mechanically responsive materials such as crystals, polymers, gels, and composites that are stimulated by light and heat. The book also explores the application of mechanical materials to soft robotics. The authors describe the many excellent mechanical crystals developed in recent years that show the ability to bend, twist, rotate, jump, self-heal, and shape memory. Mechanical polymer materials are described for evolution into artificial muscles, photomobile materials, bioinspired soft actuators, inorganic-organic hybrid materials, multi-responsive composite materials, and strain sensor materials.

The application of mechanical materials to soft robots is just the beginning. This book reviews the many challenging and versatile applications, such as soft microrobots made from photoresponsive elastomers, four-dimensional printing for assembling soft robots, self-growing of soft robots like plants, and biohybrid robots using muscle tissue. This important book:

-Explores recent developments in the use of soft smart materials in robotic systems
-Covers the full scope of mechanically responsive materials: polymers, crystals, gels, and nanocomposites
-Deals with an interdisciplinary topic of advanced smart materials research
-Contains extensive descriptions of current and future applications in soft robotics

Written for materials scientists, polymer chemists, photochemists, physical chemists, solid state chemists, inorganic chemists, and robotics engineers, Mechanically Responsive Materials for Soft Robotics offers a comprehensive and timely review of the most recent research on mechanically responsive materials and the manufacture of soft robotics.

Hideko Koshima is Guest Professor of Research Organization for Nano & Life Innovation at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. She spent most of her career in Ehime University as a professor. Her research field is solid-state photochemistry, recently focused to mechanical materials.