oft robotics has been a trending topic within the robotics community for almost two decades. However, available tools for the modeling and analysis of soft robots are still limited. This article introduces a user-friendly MATLAB toolbox, Soft Robot Simulator (SoRoSim), that integrates the geometric variable-strain (GVS) model of Cosserat rods to facilitate the static and dynamic analysis of soft, rigid, and hybrid robotic systems. We present a brief overview of the design and structure of the toolbox and validate it by comparing its results with those published in the literature. To highlight the toolbox's potential to efficiently model, simulate, optimize, and control various robotic systems, we demonstrate four sample applications. The demonstrated applications explore different actuator and external loading conditions of single-, branched-, open-, and closed-chain robotic systems. We think that the soft robotics research community will significantly benefit from the SoRoSim toolbox for a wide variety of applications.

A new family of soft underwater propellers has been recently presented. Mimicking the swimming strategy of bacterial flagella, these modules passively adapt to the surrounding fluid to provide a propulsive thrust. In the present paper we aim at further investigating the behaviour of this device and we address the optimization of its design towards improved swimming capabilities. This process is allowed by an accurate, yet simple, theoretical model which is able to precisely describe the robot's behaviour. The optimal prototype is fabricated, employing a composite material that is ad-hoc designed to provide the optimal stiffness. Finally, a simple robotic prototype is built and tested to validate the improved performances.

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Underwater soft robotics is receiving growing popularity within the scientific community, thanks to its prospective capability of tackling challenges that are hard to deal with using traditional rigid technologies, especially while interacting with an unstructured environment. Recently, we proposed a multi-module underwater robotic system with deformable propellers, inspired by bacteria morphology [1]. Here, the same bio-inspired modular structure is employed to perform manipulation tasks, in order to design a multi-functional integrated system. Employing the Geometric Variable Strain Approach, we simulate a scenario where the flagellated robot moves towards a preferred target and, using the same soft appendages, it hooks to it, simulating a monitoring task. The modeling approach and the design allow the Embodied Intelligence principles to exploit the robot’s surrounding environment (water), the shape of the grip-target and the robot’s compliant nature to mediate effective navigation and safe interaction with the target, using few control inputs.