Soft robotics is a rapidly evolving field where robots are fabricated using highly deformable materials and usually follow a bioinspired design. Their high dexterity and safety makes them ideal for applications such as gripping, locomotion, and biomedical devices, where the environment is highly dynamic and sensitive to physical interaction. Pneumatic actuation remains the dominant technology in soft robotics due to its low cost and mass, fast response time, and easy implementation. Given the significant number of publications in soft robotics over recent years, newcomers and even established researchers may have difficulty assessing the state of the art. To address this issue, this article summarizes the development of soft pneumatic actuators and robots up until the date of publication. The scope of this article includes the design, modeling, fabrication, actuation, characterization, sensing, control, and applications of soft robotic devices. In addition to a historical overview, there is a special emphasis on recent advances such as novel designs, differential simulators, analytical and numerical modeling methods, topology optimization, data-driven modeling and control methods, hardware control boards, and nonlinear estimation and control techniques. Finally, the capabilities and limitations of soft pneumatic actuators and robots are discussed and directions for future research are identified.

Recent interest in high-speed scanning probe microscopy for high-throughput applications including video-rate atomic force microscopy and probe-based nanofabrication has sparked attention on the development of high-bandwidth flexure-guided nanopositioning systems (nanopositioners). Such nanopositioners are designed to move samples with sub-nanometer resolution with positioning bandwidth in the kilohertz range. State-of-the-art designs incorporate uniquely designed flexure mechanisms driven by compact and stiff piezoelectric actuators. This paper surveys key advances in mechanical design and control of dynamic effects and nonlinearities, in the context of high-speed nanopositioning. Future challenges and research topics are also discussed.

The design, identification, and control of a novel, flexure-based, piezoelectric stack-actuated XY nanopositioning stage are presented in this paper. The main goal of the design is to combine the ability to scan over a relatively large range (25times25 mum) with high scanning speed. Consequently, the stage is designed to have its first dominant mode at 2.7 kHz. Cross-coupling between the two axes is kept to -35 dB, low enough to utilize single-input--single-output control strategies for tracking. Finite-element analysis (FEA) is used during the design process to analyze the mechanical resonance frequencies, travel range, and cross-coupling between the X- and Y-axes of the stage. Nonlinearities such as hysteresis are present in such stages. These effects, which exist due to the use of piezoelectric stacks for actuation, are minimized using charge actuation. The integral resonant control method is applied in conjunction with feedforward inversion technique to achieve high-speed and accurate scanning performances, up to 400 Hz.

Tracking of triangular or sawtooth waveforms is a major difficulty for achieving high-speed operation in many scanning applications such as scanning probe microscopy. Such non-smooth waveforms contain high order harmonics of the scan frequency that can excite mechanical resonant modes of the positioning system, limiting the scan range and bandwidth. Hence, fast raster scanning often leads to image distortion. This paper proposes analysis and design methodologies for a nonlinear and smooth closed curve, known as Lissajous pattern, which allows much faster operations compared to the ordinary scan patterns. A simple closed-form measure is formulated for the image resolution of the Lissajous pattern. This enables us to systematically determine the scan parameters. Using internal model controllers (IMC), this non-raster scan method is implemented on a commercial atomic force microscope driven by a low resonance frequency positioning stage. To reduce the tracking errors due to actuator nonlinearities, higher order harmonic oscillators are included in the IMC controllers. This results in significant improvement compared to the traditional IMC method. It is shown that the proposed IMC controller achieves much better tracking performances compared to integral controllers when the noise rejection performances is a concern.

A key hurdle in achieving high scan speeds in atomic force microscopes is that the probe is required to be scanned over the sample in a zig-zag raster pattern. The fast axis of the AFM scanner must track a signal that contains frequencies beyond its mechanical bandwidth. Consequently, fast raster scans generate distortions in the resulting image. We propose a smooth cycloid-like scan pattern that allows us to achieve scan speeds much higher than a raster scan. We illustrate how the proposed method can be implemented on a commercial AFM with minimal modifications.