Our laboratory's focus is how to design intelligent behavior of robots emerged from the mechanical softness. Living systems from primitive ones to homo sapience are made from three‐dimensionally deformable materials such as muscles, tendons, and skin tissues. A vast number of neurons are not necessarily required to control the soft bodies. Primitive organisms, e.g., caterpillars and amoeba, control the almost infinite degree of freedom their bodies with distributed information processing systems such as a small number of neurons and biochemical reactions. Our laboratory considers "mechanical softness" to be an essential difference between machines and living things. Inspired by these primitive living creatures, we are designing the intelligence of soft‐bodied robots that can be realized by the mechanical softness of textiles, fibers, and rubber‐like materials. This academic field named soft robotics and proliferating in recent years.

FACULTY RESEARCH ACTIVITY 2020/ Shinshu University Faculty of Textile Science and Technology