Soft systems are a promising direction for creating future leading technologies capable of both interacting with and assisting humans, by negotiating useful tasks in the environment. Human/environment-machine interactions are highly critical, and the use of soft sensing that is intelligent with flexible electronics and processing, fully symbiotic with soft movement is imperative. The scientific goal of this research line is to investigate natural-like physical interactions and create new soft and embodied sensing processes, with a focus on touch, for totally new robotic solutions that can ‘see the world’ and intelligently interact with it.

Our activities are based on three major areas: biomechanics of touch, embodied 3D soft transduction and bioinspired soft robotic systems for active touch investigation. Our work is articulated among various interplaying parts that involve: the study of selected biological models, material selection and characterization, design of system and of transduction mechanism – including modelling, fabrication with designed technological process, development of suitable signal processing (software and hardware). 3D fabrication technologies across multiple scales are investigated with soft non-linear materials (passive and conductive) (e.g. conductive polymers, conductive textiles, composite materials with fillers/particles as metals/CNT/graphene, responsive hydrogels, conductive fibers etc.), and several transduction principles applied (e.g. optical, inductive, piezoelectric, capacitive, resistive, etc.). Sensing features at low and high level are either directly extracted or investigated by means of cutting edge AI technologies.

• Congratulations to our PhD student Behnam Kamare for winning the Best Oral Presentation Award at LivingMachines2023 conference in Genova with the work “Study and preliminary modeling of microstructure and morphology of the elephant trunk skin”. The work is the result of the collaboration with Dr. Paule Dagenais and Prof. Michel Milinkovitch from University of Geneva, within the EU project PROBOSCIS. Thanks also to co-authors Matteo Lo Preti and Irene Bernardeschi and to the project coordinator Lucia Beccai. Congratulations also to our PhD student Anderson Nardin for presenting his poster titled “Optimization of Kirigami-Inspired Fingers Grasping Posture in Virtual Environments".

• The Soft BioRobotics Perception group is present with a stand at the Living Machines 2023 conference in Genova from 10 to 13 July 2023. Come to visit us and see our work in the amazing scenario of the Acquario di Genova.

• Awesome PHD topic in "Versatile and dexterous soft grippers through bioinspired design and functional materials" is available in our group in collaboration with Vito Cacucciolo of Politecnico di Bari. The call is open at Politecnico di Bari. DEADLINE: JULY 17 2023.

• Lucia Beccai gave an invited talk titled “The elephant trunk as a new model of tactile perception” during the workshop ViTac: Blending Virtual and Real Visuo-Tactile Perception organized by Shan Luo (King's College), Nathan Lepora (University of Bristol), Wenzhen Yuan (Carnegie Mellon University), Kaspar Althoefer (Queen Mary University of London) and Gordon Cheng (Technische Universität München) at ICRA 2023 in London. 

• Some of the stricking results of the EU funded PROBOSCIS project were showed by the project coordinator Lucia Beccai during her invited talk titled “Studying the elephant trunk from macro to microscale towards new continuum manipulators” presented at the workshop “Functional Adaptiveness in Soft Sensors and Sensing Technology” on the first day of the IEEE RoboSoft 2023 conference in Singapore. Congratulations also to our PhD students Matteo Lo Preti and Federico Bernabei for showing the results of their PhD work. 

• A PhD position for the I-RIM PhD Course in ROBOTICS AND INTELLIGENT MACHINES, curriculum Robotics and Intelligent Machines for Hostile and unstructured environments  is available at Soft BioRobotics Perception group with research theme Distributed tactile sensing for elephant-trunk inspired soft manipulators. This doctorate grant is fully funded by the proponent research institution. Contact for further information: lucia.beccai@iit.it 

• The PROBOSCIS poject will be present with an exhibition stand during the next European Robotics Forum (ERF) that will take place in Rotterdam on June 28-30, 2022. 

• Lucia Beccai co-organized the Symposium SF05 - Autonomous Materials for the Next-Generation of Smart Systems at MRS Spring Meeting, May 8-13 in Honolulu.

• The PROBOSCIS project is the sponsor of the Workshop SOFT SENSING: Environment, Morphology, Brain in Biology and Robotics organized by Van An Ho (JAIST), Lucia Beccai (IIT), Helmut Hauser (University of Bristol), Fumiya Iida (University of Cambridge) at RoboSoft 2022 on Apri 4th, 2022.

• Full-day Workshop on “SOFT SENSING: Environment, Morphology, Brain in Biology and Robotics” organized by Van An Ho (JAIST), Lucia Beccai (IIT), Helmut Hauser (University of Bristol), Fumiya Iida (University of Cambridge) at RoboSoft 2022 on Apri 4th, 2022.

• Open Soft Robotics Research - PLOS ONE Collections
• Machine Learning Techniques for Soft Robotics – Research Topic in Frontiers in Robotics and AI

We utilize mainly the following equipment:

• COMSOL Multiphysics to study coupled or multiphysics phenomena in e.g. mechanical, optical and electrical devices and systems;
• Clean room facilities -  including e.g. photolithography, soft lithography, thin film deposition, direct laser writing (Nanoscribe), inkjet-printing (DMP-2831, Dimatix, Fujifilm);
• Additive manufacturing technologies – like multimaterial 3D printer (3D-Bioplotter® Manufacturer Series, Envisiontech), stereolithography (SLA) printer (Form 2, Formlabs), several fused deposition modeling (FDM) printers, including Ultimaker S3;
• Laser cutter (VersaLaser VLS3.50)  and 3D printer (CubeX, 3DSystems);
• SEM (EVO MA10, Zeiss), Dual Beam system (Helios 600l, FEI), optical microscope ( KH-7700, Hirox), optical profilometer (DCM 3D, Leica), AFM, nanoindenter, high resolution cameras, 3DoF systems integrating a multi-axis load cells and precision linear translators;
• Other facilities and labs utilized for this research line include electronic circuit design and fabrication facilities, a mechanical machine shop, and a chemical lab.

• Prof. Unyong Jeong Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea
• Dr. Shan Luo
• Dr. Paolo Paoletti University of Liverpool, UK
• Prof. Michel Milinkovitch University of Geneva, Switzerland
• Prof. Shlomo Magdassi Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
• Prof. Cecilia Laschi
• Dr. Egidio Falotico Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy
• Dr. Kathryn Daltorio Case Western Reserve University, USA
• Prof. Paolo Milani University of Milan, Italy
• Dr. Barbara Mazzolai IIT-BSR
• Prof. Massimo De Vittorio IIT-CBN
• Dr. Marco Crepaldi IIT-EDL