Just as skin and muscle give living creatures their ability to sense, move, and adapt, soft sensors and actuators are giving shape to a new kind of robot body. Built from flexible, compliant materials, soft robots can closely mimic the movements of biological systems, a significant step beyond conventional rigid machines. This talk explores recent technologies for designing and fabricating the two essential components of that body: artificial skin that lets robots feel their surroundings, and artificial muscles that let them move with natural, fluid motion. We will discuss how these components are engineered for responsiveness and reliability, how their signals can be interpreted despite the complex, nonlinear behavior of soft structures, and how sensing and actuation can be co-designed into a single integrated system. By integrating skin and muscle into a unified soft body, we can develop a new generation of robots capable of seamless and safe interaction in human environments.

Yong-Lae Park (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, in 2010.

He is currently a Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. Prior to joining SNU, he was an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA (2013–2017) and a Technology Development Fellow in the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (2010–2013). His research interests include artificial skin sensors and muscle actuators, soft robots, wearable robots, rehabilitation robots, and medical robots.

Prof. Park is the recipient of  the Best Conference Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference of Soft Robotics (2019), the Best Application Paper Award from the IEEE Transactions on Haptics (2019), and the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Sensors Journal (2013). He is currently serving as a Senior Editor in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, an Associate Editor in Soft Robotics and npj Robotics.