Laminated foambased soft actuator for actuatable flexible structure Recently, in the search for alternatives to conventional robots, various types of soft actuators and their applications have been studied. In particular, pneumatic soft actuators have the advantage of being lightweight and high power. One of the uses of these soft actuators is as a substitute for an electric motor to actuate the joint of a structure, such as a link mechanism. Another use involves their fusion with a flexible structure. The features of this concept are a simplified system, in which almost all interfaces can be configured as flexible structures. However, because these actuatable flexible structures are made with rubber, silicone, or flexible resin, it is difficult for them to support their own weight owing to the effect of the squarecube law in the case of increasing size. Hence, these structures are limited to a size of approximately 1 times 1021 times 101 mathrmm. If an actuatable flexible structure with a size of 1 times 100 m can be realized, the concept of soft actuatorxe2x80x93flexible structure fusion is expected to provide novel solutions and applications. Herein, as a feasibility study, large actuatable flexible structures were developed. The proposed structure, LayerCAKE, is a laminated opencell and closedcell foam structure; cell foam is a lightweight and flexible material that can be used to realize large actuatable flexible structures. LayerCAKE is actuated by using the concept that open and closedcell foams contract differently when they are vacuumed. The bendingmotion model and was experimentally verified, and different types of LayerCAKE models that could exhibit various types of motion were developed and tested. Furthermore, a complexshaped LayerCAKE model (in the shape of a human hand) was developed. A large actuatable flexible structure of approximately 900 mm was realized. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the bending motion could be controlled by pressure.

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.