May 13th to 17th, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Sustainable Soft Robots: Working with the Environment

Overview 

Our world is facing an unprecedented environmental catastrophe. The coupled challenges of global warming, biodiversity loss, deforestation and environmental contamination are reducing human health and life-quality, particularly in already marginalised communities. Because of its focus on novel materials, design and manufacturing, embodied intelligence and extreme environments/tasks, soft robotics is uniquely placed to address these environmental challenges, foster nature convervation, and advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Their soft forms and embodied intelligence allow them to operate in fragile ecosystems with minimal footprint and energy consumption, and they are robust and flexible enough to undertake disaster recovery in extreme and hostile environments. When made from biodegradable materials, they can even be left in place without harming the environment.


Date: May 13th, 2024    Time: 8:50 am - 13:00 pm      Venue:  Pacific Convention Plaza, Yokohama

Aim & Scope

This workshop will bring together interdisciplinary experts and industrial partners from soft robotics and sustainability fields to discuss recent developments in sustainable soft robotics, and propose a set of soft/green grand challenges for the future. It aims to elevate underrepresented voices by highlighting the value of indigenous knowledge and the contributions of ECRs to this field. Areas of interest include: green materials and manufacturing, soft environmental monitoring robots (terrestrial, underwater and aerial), disaster  recovery and extreme environment robots, high-efficiency design, and soft agriculture.

Topics

Xing Wang


CSIRO

David Howard

CSIRO


Joshua Pinskier  

CSIRO

Michael Y Wang

Monash University,  Great Bay University

Chao Chen

Monash University


Pham Huy Nguyen

EMPA, Imperial College London

Mirko Kovač


EMPA, EPFL,

Imperial College London

Yue Xie


University of Cambridge

Fumiya Iida

University of Cambridge

Important Dates

Workshop day: 13th, May, 2024

Time: 8:50 am - 13:00 pm

Submission deadline: 20, Mar, 2024  8, April, 2024

Notification of acceptance: 08, Apr, 2024 15, April, 2024


Invited Speakers

A/Prof Zhongkui Wang

Prof Barbara Mazzolai

Prof Li Wen

A/Prof Clementine Boutry

Mr Hyeong-Joon Joo

Prof Mirko Kovač

Endorsement

This workshop has received the support from IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Soft Robotics. 

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Prof. Matteo Cianchetti (IEEE-RAS TC on Soft Robotics) for the essential support.

Let us know if you have any questions!