This project focuses on enabling human-in-the-loop control over soft tele-robotic manipulators. Such soft robotic manipulators require many more degrees of freedom than can be intuitively controlled by humans with traditional interfaces (like joysticks, or even 6DOF haptic manipulators or exoskeletons).

Inspiration for novel control and interaction will be sought in nature (e.g., the way animals like cuttlefish control their soft limbs), in close collaboration with the BioMechE at TU Delft and Wageningen University. The strong haptic expertise in mechatronics and control engineering of at TU/e will be necessary to accelerate development of high-quality prototypes, and much synergy is expected.