Soft mobile robots review covers wheelless locomotion strategies and challenges

A comprehensive review of terrestrial soft mobile robots has been published on arXiv by Dimuthu D.K. Arachchige. The paper zeroes in on wheelless locomotive systems—robots that move without traditional wheels, using instead soft, deformable bodies to navigate terrain. It systematically catalogs past and present locomotion strategies (e.g., crawling, rolling, slithering), the actuation methods that enable them (pneumatic, shape-memory alloys, dielectric elastomers), and the modeling and control approaches used to achieve reliable movement. The review spans applications from search-and-rescue and surveillance to exploration and manufacturing.

The author highlights critical challenges still blocking real-world deployment: durability of soft materials under repeated stress, energy efficiency for untethered operation, precise control despite high degrees of freedom, and integration of sensing and computation into compliant bodies. By identifying these hurdles, the paper serves as both a roadmap for researchers and a practical guide for practitioners looking to adopt soft robots. The work is particularly timely as the field moves from lab prototypes toward field-ready systems, making it a must-read for anyone tracking the evolution of soft robotics.