Hydrogel-based soft pneumatic bending actuator with self-healing and proprioception capabilities

Proprioception is a necessary skill in robots and especially complicated in soft robots. It is commonly achieved by adding an external complement to the robotic structure that acts as a sensor. In this work, we present an approach in which the material itself (a cationic network hydrogel) serves as a structure and as a curvature sensor in a soft pneumatic bending actuator. The experiments carried ...