Recognizing the future leaders of Bio-Inspired Robotics is fundamental to safeguarding tomorrow's driving force in research and innovation. Here we present the Frontiers in Robotics and AI inaugural article collection ‘The Future of Bio-Inspired Robotics: An Early Career Scientists’ Perspective’. This collection welcomes perspective and opinion article types from early career scientists that wish to share their opinion on the future of the Bio-Inspired Robotics field. Contributors to this collection are also free to submit other article types if preferred to present advances in theory, experiment and methodology with applications to compelling problems. We aim to highlight the perspective and research of the leading scientists of the future across the entire breadth of Bio-Inspired Robotics. While future innovations in Bio-Inspired Robotics are yet to be discovered, this Research Topic will give us a hint at what to expect.

Beihang University

Lincoln Institute for Agri-food Technology, University of Lincoln

Frontiers in Robotics and AI

Bio-Inspired Robotics

The Future of Bio-Inspired Robotics: An Early Career Scientists’ Perspective

Humans have attempted to mimic nature&#x2019;s solutions for over 4,000 years, but modern bioinspired methodologies have their roots and formalizations in the &#x2019;50s. Since then, bioinspiration fostered innovation in diverse aspects of our technologies, from software to hardware solutions. Bioinspired robots are ubiquitous today, and research efforts are directed toward disparate fields, including but not limited to applications like environmental conservation, medicine, exploration, defense, and fundamental research. Bioinspired methodologies can serve as more effective technological tools for various tasks and provide an investigation alternative to unveil nature&#x2019;s secrets via technical counterparts. With this impressive range of scope and opportunities, this Research Topic focuses on the contributions of early career scientists and their point of view on the field they will contribute to advocating and shaping. Even if brief, the Research Topic covered vital aspects and the complexity of the field, providing a reflection point on the future of bioinspiration.For example, (<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1102286">Angelidis</a>) illustrates the challenges and the need for robust and comprehensive simulation environments. The multi-disciplinary nature of bioinspiration requires an unprecedented effort toward integrating simulation with multiple physics, easily extendable and modular to include the needed details and novel discoveries. The granularity of simulation, and therefore the detail of bioinspiration, is also covered and reflected by (<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.1073329">Ren and Shao</a>), who explained their point of view on “delicate structure” and how a bottom-up approach might benefit the future of bioinspiration. Again, it is highlighted how those low-level components interact with each other and how they have the potential to explore deformations, plasticity, and control to create the emergence of behaviors. This concept also underpins the research on Soft Robotics and how the body can be exploited for computation, safe interaction, and sustainability. Therefore, it is not surprising that this Research Topic is explored in detail in the reflection of (<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1129827">Tauber and Slesarenko</a>), where the pros and cons of soft robotics concerning control, energy autonomy, sustainability and compliance are analyzed to reflect on how the field could move forward. Eventually, an emerging and intriguing application of bioinspired robots underlies in their potential as conservation tools. Presented by (<a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1145798">Chellapurath et al.</a>), it is exciting to see how bioinspired robots are already venturing into the field and providing effective alternatives for exploration, and as well it is essential to reflect on the next steps that would make the solutions more robust, efficient, and effective.This Research Topic succinctly illustrated this field&#x2019;s complexity and potential, and it shed light on the possible future of bioinspired research, that will be pioneered by the Early Career Scientists of our field.MC: Writing&#x2013;original draft. LW: Writing&#x2013;review and editing.The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Editorial: The future of bio-inspired robotics: an early career scientists’ perspective

We live in a time of unprecedented scientific and human progress while being increasingly aware of its negative impacts on our planet’s health. Aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems have significantly declined putting us on course to a sixth mass extinction event. Nonetheless, the advances made in science, engineering, and technology have given us the opportunity to reverse some of our ecosystem damage and preserve them through conservation efforts around the world. However, current conservation efforts are primarily human led with assistance from conventional robotic systems which limit their scope and effectiveness, along with negatively impacting the surroundings. In this perspective, we present the field of bioinspired robotics to develop versatile agents for future conservation efforts that can operate in the natural environment while minimizing the disturbance/impact to its inhabitants and the environment’s natural state. We provide an operational and environmental framework that should be considered while developing bioinspired robots for conservation. These considerations go beyond addressing the challenges of human-led conservation efforts and leverage the advancements in the field of materials, intelligence, and energy harvesting, to make bioinspired robots move and sense like animals. In doing so, it makes bioinspired robots an attractive, non-invasive, sustainable, and effective conservation tool for exploration, data collection, intervention, and maintenance tasks. Finally, we discuss the development of bioinspired robots in the context of collaboration, practicality, and applicability that would ensure their further development and widespread use to protect and preserve our natural world.

We live in a time of unprecedented scientific and human progress while being increasingly aware of its negative impacts on our planet&#x2019;s health. Aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems have significantly declined putting us on course to a sixth mass extinction event. Nonetheless, the advances made in science, engineering, and technology have given us the opportunity to reverse some of our ecosystem damage and preserve them through conservation efforts around the world. However, current conservation efforts are primarily human led with assistance from conventional robotic systems which limit their scope and effectiveness, along with negatively impacting the surroundings. In this perspective, we present the field of bioinspired robotics to develop versatile agents for future conservation efforts that can operate in the natural environment while minimizing the disturbance/impact to its inhabitants and the environment&#x2019;s natural state. We provide an operational and environmental framework that should be considered while developing bioinspired robots for conservation. These considerations go beyond addressing the challenges of human-led conservation efforts and leverage the advancements in the field of materials, intelligence, and energy harvesting, to make bioinspired robots move and sense like animals. In doing so, it makes bioinspired robots an attractive, non-invasive, sustainable, and effective conservation tool for exploration, data collection, intervention, and maintenance tasks. Finally, we discuss the development of bioinspired robots in the context of collaboration, practicality, and applicability that would ensure their further development and widespread use to protect and preserve our natural world.

Bioinspired robots can foster nature conservation

Our understanding of the complex mechanisms that power biological intelligence has been greatly enhanced through the explosive growth of large-scale neuroscience and robotics simulation tools that are used by the research community to perform previously infeasible experiments, such as the simulation of the neocortex’s circuitry. Nevertheless, simulation falls far from being directly applicable to biorobots due to the large discrepancy between the simulated and the real world. A possible solution for this problem is the further enhancement of existing simulation tools for robotics, AI and neuroscience with multi-physics capabilities. Previously infeasible or difficult to simulate scenarios, such as robots swimming on the water surface, interacting with soft materials, walking on granular materials etc., would be rendered possible within a multi-physics simulation environment designed for robotics. In combination with multi-physics simulation, large-scale simulation tools that integrate multiple simulation modules in a closed-loop manner help address fundamental questions around the organization of neural circuits and the interplay between the brain, body and environment. We analyze existing designs for large-scale simulation running on cloud and HPC infrastructure as well as their shortcomings. Based on this analysis we propose a next-gen modular architecture design based on multi-physics engines, that we believe would greatly benefit biorobotics and AI.

Our understanding of the complex mechanisms that power biological intelligence has been greatly enhanced through the explosive growth of large-scale neuroscience and robotics simulation tools that are used by the research community to perform previously infeasible experiments, such as the simulation of the neocortex&#x2019;s circuitry. Nevertheless, simulation falls far from being directly applicable to biorobots due to the large discrepancy between the simulated and the real world. A possible solution for this problem is the further enhancement of existing simulation tools for robotics, AI and neuroscience with multi-physics capabilities. Previously infeasible or difficult to simulate scenarios, such as robots swimming on the water surface, interacting with soft materials, walking on granular materials etc., would be rendered possible within a multi-physics simulation environment designed for robotics. In combination with multi-physics simulation, large-scale simulation tools that integrate multiple simulation modules in a closed-loop manner help address fundamental questions around the organization of neural circuits and the interplay between the brain, body and environment. We analyze existing designs for large-scale simulation running on cloud and HPC infrastructure as well as their shortcomings. Based on this analysis we propose a next-gen modular architecture design based on multi-physics engines, that we believe would greatly benefit biorobotics and AI.

A perspective on large-scale simulation as an enabler for novel biorobotics applications

During the recent decade, we have witnessed an extraordinary flourishing of soft robotics. Rekindled interest in soft robots is partially associated with the advances in manufacturing techniques that enable the fabrication of sophisticated multi-material robotic bodies with dimensions ranging across multiple length scales. In recent manuscripts, a reader might find peculiar-looking soft robots capable of grasping, walking, or swimming. However, the growth in publication numbers does not always reflect the real progress in the field since many manuscripts employ very similar ideas and just tweak soft body geometries. Therefore, we unreservedly agree with the sentiment that future research must move beyond “soft for soft’s sake.” Soft robotics is an undoubtedly fascinating field, but it requires a critical assessment of the limitations and challenges, enabling us to spotlight the areas and directions where soft robots will have the best leverage over their traditional counterparts. In this perspective paper, we discuss the current state of robotic research related to such important aspects as energy autonomy, electronic-free logic, and sustainability. The goal is to critically look at perspectives of soft robotics from two opposite points of view provided by early career researchers and highlight the most promising future direction, that is, in our opinion, the employment of soft robotic technologies for soft bio-inspired artificial organs.

During the recent decade, we have witnessed an extraordinary flourishing of soft robotics. Rekindled interest in soft robots is partially associated with the advances in manufacturing techniques that enable the fabrication of sophisticated multi-material robotic bodies with dimensions ranging across multiple length scales. In recent manuscripts, a reader might find peculiar-looking soft robots capable of grasping, walking, or swimming. However, the growth in publication numbers does not always reflect the real progress in the field since many manuscripts employ very similar ideas and just tweak soft body geometries. Therefore, we unreservedly agree with the sentiment that future research must move beyond &#x201c;soft for soft&#x2019;s sake.&#x201d; Soft robotics is an undoubtedly fascinating field, but it requires a critical assessment of the limitations and challenges, enabling us to spotlight the areas and directions where soft robots will have the best leverage over their traditional counterparts. In this perspective paper, we discuss the current state of robotic research related to such important aspects as energy autonomy, electronic-free logic, and sustainability. The goal is to critically look at perspectives of soft robotics from two opposite points of view provided by early career researchers and highlight the most promising future direction, that is, in our opinion, the employment of soft robotic technologies for soft bio-inspired artificial organs.