Actuation and stiffening in fluiddriven soft robots using lowmeltingpoint material Soft material robots offer a number of advantages over traditional rigid robots in applications including humanrobot interaction, rehabilitation and surgery. These robots can navigate around obstacles, elongate, squeeze through narrow openings or be squeezed  and they are considered to be inherently safe. The ability to stiffen compliant soft actuators has been achieved by embedding various mechanisms that are generally decoupled from the actuation principle. Miniaturisation becomes challenging due to space limitations which can in turn result in diminution of stiffening effects. Here, we propose to hydraulically actuate soft manipulators with lowmeltingpoint material and, at the same time, be able to switch between a soft and stiff state. Instead of allocating an additional stiffening chamber within the soft robot, one chamber only is used for actuation and stiffening. Low Melting Point Alloy is integrated into the actuation chamber of a singlecompartment soft robotic manipulator and the interfaced robotic syringe pump. Temperature change is enabled through embedded nichrome wires. Our experimental results show higher stiffness factors, from 9xe2x80x9312 opposing the motion of curvature, than those previously found for jamming mechanisms incorporated in separate additional chambers, in the range of 2xe2x80x938 for the same motion.

Configuration Modeling of a Soft Robotic Element with Selectable Bending Axes This paper presents an approach for modeling new soft robotic materials which possess the ability to control directional stiffness. These materials are inspired by biological systems where movements are enabled by variable stiffness tissue and contraction of localized muscle groups. Here a lowmeltingpoint (LMP) material lattice embedded in an elastomer serves as a rigid skeleton that may be locally melted to allow bending at selectable joint locations. The forward kinematics of the lattice has been modeled using the product of exponentials method with the incorporation of bending axis selectivity. In this paper, we develop this model to account for torques imposed by tendons, and we model the elastomerxe2x80x99s resistance to bending as a torsional spring at the selected joints. Thus we obtain a twoway relationship between tendon forces and joint anglesaxes. The concept of applying traditional robot modeling strategies to selectively compliant robotic structures could enable precise control of dexterous soft robots that satisfy stringent safety criteria.