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