Intelligent Service Robotics - Special issue on Soft component technology and application for soft robotics

Conventional robots consist of rigid parts and materials, limiting the deformation and adaptation of their body to the external environment. It is difficult for typical robots composed of stiff materials to perform tasks such as handling delicate materials and passing through narrow pathways, although there are requirements for such functions in many fields of industry. Recent advances in soft robotics have received considerable attentions as solutions to solve the problems. The aim of soft robotics research is to develop advanced technologies with new robotic mechanisms based on soft materials and structures to increase their adaptability. Soft robots can be widely used in the robotics industry, health care, and field exploration. By gathering a wide spectrum of technologies for soft robots, this issue will establish ISR at the forefront of the next wave of intelligent service robots. The central theme of the Special Issue is soft component technology and application for soft robotics and will capture the surge of interest in the application of new soft robots.

We plan to welcome original, significant and visionary papers describing scientific methods and technologies that steps toward the realization of soft service robots. The content could also present surveys and reviews that summarize state-of-the-art practices in this arena. Special attention will be paid to papers focusing on soft material creation, characterization, and modeling, flexible and transient electronics, soft actuators and sensors, control and simulation of highly deformable structures, bioinspiration and biomimetics, hybrid machines with soft and hard components, and design and fabrication of conformable machines for soft robotics.

Submissions of scientific results from experts in academia and industry worldwide will be strongly encouraged. Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Soft material creation, characterization, and modeling for soft robots
• Flexible and transient electronics for soft robots
• Soft actuators and sensors for soft robots
• Control and simulation of highly deformable structures for soft robots
• Bioinspiration and biomimetics for soft robots
• Hybrid machines with soft and hard components
• Design and fabrication of conformable machines

Guest Editors:
Youngsu Cha, Associate Professor, Korea University
Kwang Jin Kim, Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)
Seung-Won Kim, Senior Researcher, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)
Hyosang Lee, Research Group Leader, University of Stuttgart

Submission closing date:
September 30, 2023

Guest Editor biographies:
Youngsu Cha is an Associate Professor of school of electrical engineering, Korea University. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Korea University in 2004, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from New York University in 2015. He was a Principal Research Scientist with the Center for Intelligent and Interactive Robotics, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). His current research interests include smart materials and structures, multiphysics modeling, flexible sensors and actuators, energy harvesting, and robotics. He has published numerous papers in these areas. He served as an associate editor of IEEE/RSJ IROS for many years. He served on the program committee of AMSM 2018, 2019, and 2022 and the award chair of UR 2019. He is the program committee of SPIE Smart Structures 2023 and the finance chair of RO-MAN 2023. He is an associate editor of ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control since 2018. He received the ASME Gary Anderson Early Achievement Award in 2022.

Kwang Jin Kim is Distinguished Professor of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Prior to joining UNLV in Fall 2012, he was University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Foundation Professor and Chair of the mechanical engineering department (2007-2012). He graduated from Yonsei University in 1987 and received his MS and Ph.D. from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1989 and 1992, respectively. Later, he completed a postdoctoral study at the University of Maryland-College Park UMCP (1993-1995). His industrial experience includes Senior Research Engineer at Thermal Electric Devices, Inc. (1995-1997) and Chief Scientist at Environmental Robots, Inc. (1997-2001), Albuquerque NM. His research interests are in a broad spectrum of Active Materials/Sensors and Energy Systems. He has authored/ co-authored more than 410(+) technical publications including 212 referred journal papers and 3 monographs and was awarded 4 U.S. patents. He is a recipient of the 2021 SSH lifetime achievement award from SPIE, the 2016 Harry Reid Silver State Researcher Award, the 2016 Barrick Distinguished Scholar Award, the 2015 Regents' Researcher Award, the 2011 UNR Foundation Professorship, the 2006 UNR Lemelson Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the 2002 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities. He is a Fellow of ASME (2007) and National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and currently serves on several editorial boards of Smart Materials and Structures (SMS), International Journal of Smart and Nano Materials (TSNM), Scientific Reports, International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, Frontiers in bioengineering, Frontiers in Robotics and AI and Actuators.

Seung-Won Kim is a senior research scientist at the Center for Healthcare Robotics in Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) since 2016. As his current ancillary academic positions, he is an associate professor at AI-Robotics major in UST-KIST school. He received the B.S. (2009) and the Ph.D. (2016) degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. During the Ph.D. coursework, he received the first Global Ph.D. Fellowship. As a visiting scholar, he visited at Soft Machines Lab. in Carnegie Mellon University, PA, U.S.A. in 2020. His main field of research interest is developing novel mechanisms, sensors, and actuators for soft robotics and medical/healthcare robotics utilizing smart materials such as shape memory materials, phase transition materials, as well as designs considering bioinspiration and ergonomics. He is an IEEE member and IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Member. He served as a member of competition chairs of IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) in 2019. As selected awards, he received the best student paper award from IEEE/RSJ, EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (2010), Best paper award in Robot & Automation from Spring Conference of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering (2010), Best paper award from autumn conference of the Korean Society for composite Materials (2013), .Outstanding presenter award from International Symposium on Green Manufacturing and Applications (2015), and Research Development Team Award from Korea Institute of Science and Technology (2018, 2020).

Hyosang Lee leads an independent research group of Intelligent Tactile Systems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He was a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany. He received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 2010. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technologies (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, in 2012 and 2017. His research focuses on creating a human-like artificial tactile skin in particular smart materials and structures, multiphysics simulation, mechatronics, tomographic signal processing, sim-to-real transfer learning, and physical human-robot interaction.