REVIEW article
Front. Mater.
Sec. Smart Materials
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmats.2025.1692206
This article is part of the Research TopicUnlocking the Potential of Smart Metamaterials and Additive Manufacturing in Advanced StructuresView all articles
Soft robotic grippers: a review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China
- 2Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China
- 3Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China
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Soft grippers, with their high flexibility and environmental adaptability, have shown promising applications in industrial automation, medical assistance, and underwater operations. This study provides a detailed analysis of various actuation methods, such as fluid pressure, mechanical force, electric fields, magnetic fields, and thermal fields, discussing their principles, applications, and limitations. Additionally, the applications of materials such as hydrogels, elastic polymers, shape memory alloys, shape memory polymers, magnetic materials, and liquid metals in soft grippers are summarized, highlighting their respective advantages and disadvantages. On this basis, a comprehensive analysis and outlook on the performance of soft grippers, the challenges they currently face, and their future development directions have been conducted. This article aims to provide comprehensive theoretical insights for the design and application of soft grippers, thus advancing the field.
Keywords: soft grippers, Actuation methods, smart materials, Future development, Challenges and Limitations
Received: 25 Aug 2025; Accepted: 25 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Man, Liu, Li, Cao, Yu and Tan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiaoang Liu, liuxiaoang@hebut.edu.cn
Shuai Li, lishuai@kust.edu.cn
Bo Cao, bocao@nwpu.edu.cn
Xiaojun Tan, xiaojun_tan1@163.com
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