Soft robots and soft bodies: biological insights into the structure and function of fluidic soft robots

Over the last two decades, robotics engineering has witnessed rapid growth in the exploration and development of soft robots. Soft robots are made of deformable materials with mechanical properties or other features that resemble biological structures. These robots are often inspired by living organisms or mimic their locomotion, such as crawling and swimming. This paper aims to assist researchers in robotics and engineering to design soft robots incorporating or inspired by biological systems with a more informed perspective on biological models and functions. We address the characteristics of fluidic soft robots inspired by or mimicking biological examples, establish a method to categorize soft robots from a functional biological perspective, and provide a wider range of organisms to inspire the development of soft robotics. The actuation mechanisms in bioinspired and biomimetic soft robotics would benefit from a clearer understanding of the underlying principles, organization, and function of biological structures.