In the past decade, active matter, especially organic mechanical materials such as crystals and polymers that can move macroscopically by external stimuli, such as light, heat, electricity and others, have been intensively studied in materials chemistry. Many mechanically responsive materials have been developed at this time, and widely introduced as soft sensors or actuators. Such the mechanical materials that move autonomously by external stimuli might be promising as a new kind of materials for soft robots with improved safety and comfort and also microrobots to work in bioscience fields.
This workshop aims at gathering physicists, chemists, and robotic engineers developing such “active matter”, either polymer with active architecture, or active particles to be incorporated towards polymers functionalization. Soft robots will be the best application of the mechanically responsive active matter, and the detailed discussion for the novel research and its application to soft robotics and microrobots will be conducted in the international workshop.
This workshop will open and promote a new international collaboration with active researchers from different fields to focus on the research of active matter for soft robotics.