Devices fabricated using soft materials have been a major research focus of late, capturing the attention of scientists and laypersons alike in a wide range of fields, from microfluidics to robotics. The functionality of such devices relies on their structural and material properties; thus, the fabrication method is of utmost importance. Here, multilayer soft lithography, precision laser micromachining, and folding to establish a new paradigm are combined for creating 3D soft microstructures and devices. Phase-changing materials are exploited to transform actuators into structural elements, allowing 2D laminates to evolve into a third spatial dimension. To illustrate the capabilities of this new fabrication paradigm, the first "microfluidic origami for reconfigurable pneumatic/hydraulic" device is designed and manufactured: a 12-layer soft robotic peacock spider with embedded microfluidic circuitry and actuatable features.

intuitiveness of the system. [6] Soft robotics represents a promising technology in this field because soft robots are constructed from compliant and flexible materials, resulting in machines that can safely interact with the surrounding environment. [7,8] They have already found applications in several research fields including the creation of biomimetic devices (given that the majority of the animal kingdom is mostly or entirely soft), [9][10][11][12] wearable robots, [13] and medical robots. [14] However, the low elastic modulus of soft materials can limit the interaction forces between the robots and the surgical target. To resolve the paradox of generating large forces from soft devices, stiffening mechanisms can be exploited, [15] such as granular jamming that has been integrated in a soft manipulator in order to effectively apply forces on a desired surgical target. [16] Soft biomedical robots are typically centimeter-scale [17] or larger but the current trend in minimally invasive procedures is to perform surgical tasks through small and remote entry points relative to the surgical target, [18] thus requiring millimeter-scale systems. Prior examples of soft millimeter-scale mechanisms include flexible microactuators for building robotic manipulators and grippers constructed by casting silicone rubber and nylon fibers in micromolds fabricated using electrical discharge machining, [19] soft microtentacles for grasping delicate objects consisting of elastomeric microtubes fabricated with a direct peeling-based soft-lithographic technique, [20] and a soft miniature hand fabricated through casting in micromolds and bonding silicone rubber through excimer light irradiation. [21] The forces that these actuators can exert are restricted to the millinewton range, thus suggested biomedical applications are limited to low-force surgical tasks, such as those performed in retinal surgery [22] and neurosurgery. [23] These limitations motivate the need for new millimeter-scale manufacturing technologies that combine soft materials with precision mechanisms to achieve distal articulation, integrated sensing, and effective force transmission with compliant, back-drivable, and safe devices for minimally invasive surgery.The "pop-up book microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)" manufacturing method creates 3D microstructures based on folding of multilayer rigid-flex laminates, [24] and enables fabrication of highly complex structures with embedded actuation and sensing. [25] Surgical applications of pop-up mechanisms have been proposed as self-assembling force sensors A hybrid manufacturing paradigm is introduced that combines pop-up book microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) manufacturing with softlithographic techniques to produce millimeter-scale mechanisms with embedded sensing and user-defined distributed compliance. This method combines accuracy, flexibility in material selection, scalability, and topological complexity with soft, biocompatible materials and microfluidics, paving the way for applications of soft fluid-p...

Recently, there has been a growing interest in moving away from traditional rigid exoskeletons towards soft exosuits that can provide a variety of advantages including a reduction in both the weight carried by the wearer and the inertia experienced as the wearer flexes and extends their joints. These advantages are achieved by using structured functional textiles in combination with a flexible actuation scheme that enables assistive torques to be applied to the biological joints. Understanding the human-suit interface in these systems is important, as one of the key challenges with this approach is applying force to the human body in a manner that is safe, comfortable, and effective. This paper outlines a methodology for characterizing the structured functional textile of soft exosuits and then uses that methodology to evaluate several factors that lead to different suit-human series stiffnesses and pressure distributions over the body. These factors include the size of the force distribution area and the composition of the structured functional textile. Following the test results, design guidelines are suggested to maximize the safety, comfort, and efficiency of the exosuit.

The mechanical design of a novel robotic module for\ud a self-reconfigurable modular robotic system is presented in this\ud paper. The robotic module, named Scout robot, was designed to\ud serve both as a fully sensorized autonomous miniaturized robot\ud for exploration in unstructured environments and as a module of a\ud larger robotic organism. The Scout robot has a quasi-cubic shape\ud of 105 mm × 105 mm × 123.5 mm, and weighs less than 1 kg. It\ud is provided with tracks for 2-D locomotion and with two rotational\ud DoFs for reconfiguration and macrolocomotion when assembled in\ud a modular structure. A laser sensor was incorporated to measure\ud the distance and relative angle to an object, and image-guided\ud locomotion was successfully demonstrated. In addition, five Scout\ud robot prototypes were fabricated, and multimodal locomotion of\ud assembled robots was demonstrated