Soft robots powered by sustainable energy abundantly available on Earth, such as heat, humidity, sunlight, osmotic potential, pH variation, triboelectricity, and wind, represent a promising shift toward eco-friendly and autonomous robotic systems. Efficiency depends on selecting and engineering responsive materials that directly transform environmental stimuli into mechanical actuation and motion, or harvest and store environmental energy to power actuators. Thermo-responsive materials undergo shape changes with temperature variations, while hygroscopic materials leverage moisture adsorption to induce actuation. Photothermal materials convert sunlight into heat and can combine thermal or hygroscopic actuators for controlled deformation. Osmotic processes drive movement through fluidic interactions, whereas pH-sensitive hydrogels respond to chemical gradients, facilitating controlled motion. Triboelectric materials generate electricity via contact-induced charge transfer, enabling self-powered sensing and actuation, while wind-dispersed structures exploit aerodynamic forces for unique movements. This review explores the critical roles of chemical, physical, mechanical, and environmental properties of materials in designing soft robots for sustainable and autonomous operation. Importantly, the review distinguishes between the broad concept of environmental energy and operation that is energetically sustainable. It systematically evaluates reported actuators and soft robotic systems based on whether their required energy sources and operating conditions are naturally occurring and regenerable, or instead depend on restricted environmental ranges, auxiliary inputs, or laboratory-controlled conditions. By examining material behavior, integration into multifunctional composites, and mechanism design for exploiting sustainable energy, this review identifies both established and emerging pathways toward environmentally realistic, autonomous, and long-lived soft robotic systems, with potential applications in environmental monitoring, reforestation, and other robotic domains.

Environmental intelligence brings together synergies among environmental science, advanced sensor research, data science, robotics, and artificial intelligence to enable a better understanding of the natural environment and effective coordination of the responses to the associated challenges. Environmental intelligence is a particularly relevant application field for the new trend of ecorobotics research, in which robots are envisioned as environmentally responsible, energy-efficient, bioinspired machines capable of adapting and safely interacting within natural ecosystems. By incorporating an ecological approach to robot design, innovative fabrication technologies, biodegradable materials, distributed architectures for sensing and intelligence, new power sources, and energy-harvesting solutions, ecorobots offer practical solutions for in-depth analysis of natural processes. This increases environmental knowledge and supports sustainable strategies to safeguard the environment. This article reviews the field of environmental intelligence with a focus on the roles, features, and abilities of ecorobots and provides future perspectives toward environmental sustainability.

Dataset I-Seed_DS1 focus on bioengineering investigations of plant seed models, to define useful specifications for the design of the artificial systems in terms of multi-functional materials and morphological computation. Task 3.1. Erodium cicutarium seeds: from natural features to robotic specifics. Task 3.2. Samara seeds: from natural features to robotic specifics

AbstractSoft robotics aims at creating systems with improved performance of movement and adaptability in unknown, challenging, environments and with higher level of safety during interactions with humans. This Roadmap on Soft Robotics covers selected aspects for the design of soft robots significantly linked to the area of multifunctional materials, as these are considered a fundamental component in the design of soft robots for an improvement of their peculiar abilities, such as morphing, adaptivity and growth. The roadmap includes different approaches for components and systems design, bioinspired materials, methodologies for building soft robots, strategies for the implementation and control of their functionalities and behavior, and examples of soft-bodied systems showing abilities across different environments. For each covered topic, the author(s) describe the current status and research directions, current and future challenges, and perspective advances in science and technology to meet the challenges.

Additive manufacturing methods1–4 using static and mobile robots are being developed for both on-site construction5–8 and off-site prefabrication9,10. Here we introduce a method of additive manufacturing, referred to as aerial additive manufacturing (Aerial-AM), that utilizes a team of aerial robots inspired by natural builders11 such as wasps who use collective building methods12,13. We present a scalable multi-robot three-dimensional (3D) printing and path-planning framework that enables robot tasks and population size to be adapted to variations in print geometry throughout a building mission. The multi-robot manufacturing framework allows for autonomous three-dimensional printing under human supervision, real-time assessment of printed geometry and robot behavioural adaptation. To validate autonomous Aerial-AM based on the framework, we develop BuilDrones for depositing materials during flight and ScanDrones for measuring the print quality, and integrate a generic real-time model-predictive-control scheme with the Aerial-AM robots. In addition, we integrate a dynamically self-aligning delta manipulator with the BuilDrone to further improve the manufacturing accuracy to five millimetres for printing geometry with precise trajectory requirements, and develop four cementitious–polymeric composite mixtures suitable for continuous material deposition. We demonstrate proof-of-concept prints including a cylinder 2.05 metres high consisting of 72 layers of a rapid-curing insulation foam material and a cylinder 0.18 metres high consisting of 28 layers of structural pseudoplastic cementitious material, a light-trail virtual print of a dome-like geometry, and multi-robot simulations. Aerial-AM allows manufacturing in-flight and offers future possibilities for building in unbounded, at-height or hard-to-access locations. An additive manufacturing method using a team of autonomous aerial robots allows for scalable and adaptable three-dimensional printing, and is used to deposit building materials during flight.

Here, we propose a microfabricated soft probe for soil drilling inspired by the seeds of the Erodium malacoides plant. Firstly, we studied the morphology and biomechanics of the head of Erodium, which is called capsule. Secondly, based on the extracted biological parameters, we designed the artificial capsule-like probe. Then, we microfabricated artificial capsules using a 3D micromolding approach via two-photon lithography in combination with casting of biodegradable thermoplastic polycaprolactone polymer (PCL). Finally, we tested and characterized the penetration forces of natural and artificial capsules in different substrates, including natural and artificial soils with different particle sizes. This focused research on material characterization and fabrication methodology shows great potential for prototyping seed-inspired miniature probes for soil penetration, which may be embedded in ad hoc built soft robots. Such robots can find applications in natural fields for in situ monitoring of soil parameters (e. g. humidity) and for improving the preservation of natural ecosystems.

Envisioning a rethink of the design of robotic systems is necessary for a step-change in developing more sustainable and efficient artificial machines. Recent trends in robotics have embraced the idea of taking inspiration from plants to create energy-efficient components, self-morphing growing robots, biodegradable robots, and the definition of novel models of embodied intelligence and morphological computation. Plants can move and grow in air, soil, and water. They can sense and explore the surrounding environment, continuously grow and adapt their shape, and even communicate with each other and with other organisms. Their role for us and our planet is fundamental: for the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and to preserve the equilibrium of biodiversity and global climate. Understanding their functioning is of paramount importance and represents an opportunity not only for scientific advancements but also for rethinking the design of artificial technologies that can better integrate with our ecosystems. With a specific focus on the aspects of plants’ embodied intelligence, this contribution highlights some of the features of plants that have been investigated for engineering design and introduces new research lines currently at the forefront of the field. A perspective for innovation in science and robotics inspired by plants is also discussed, with a vision toward a new generation of sustainable robots.

The EU-funded FET Proactive Environmental Intelligence project “I-Seed” (Grant Agreement n. 101017940, https://www.iseedproject.eu/) targets towards the development of a radically simplified and environmentally friendly approach for environmental monitoring. Specifically, I-Seed aims at developing a new generation of self-deployable and biodegradable soft miniaturized robots, inspired by the morphology and dispersion abilities of plant seeds, able to perform low-cost, environmentally responsible, in-situ measurements. The natural functional mechanisms of seeds dispersal offer a rich source of robust, highly adaptive, mass and energy efficient mechanisms, and behavioral and morphological intelligence, which can be selected and implemented for advanced, but simple, technological inventions. I-Seed robots are conceived as unique in their movement abilities because inspired by passive mechanisms and materials of natural seeds, and unique in their environmentally friendly design because made of all biodegradable components. Sensing is based on a chemical transduction mechanism in a stimulus-responsive sensor material with fluorescence-based optical readout, which can be read via one or more drones equipped with fluorescent LiDAR technology and a software able to perform a real time georeferencing of data. The I-Seed robotic ecosystem is envisioned to be used for collecting environmental data in-situ with high spatial and temporal resolution across large remote areas where no monitoring data are available, and thus for extending current environmental sensor frameworks and data analysis systems.

Plants have evolved different mechanisms to disperse from parent plants and improve germination to sustain their survival. The study of seed dispersal mechanisms, with the related structural and functional characteristics, is an active research topic for ecology, plant diversity, climate change, as well as for its relevance for material science and engineering. The natural mechanisms of seed dispersal show a rich source of robust, highly adaptive, mass and energy efficient mechanisms for optimized passive flying, landing, crawling and drilling. The secret of seeds mobility is embodied in the structural features and anatomical characteristics of their tissues, which are designed to be selectively responsive to changes in the environmental conditions, and which make seeds one of the most fascinating examples of morphological computation in Nature. Particularly clever for their spatial mobility performance, are those seeds that use their morphology and structural characteristics to be carried by the wind and dispersed over great distances (i.e. "winged" and "parachute" seeds), and seeds able to move and penetrate in soil with a self-burial mechanism driven by their hygromorphic properties and morphological features. By looking at their motion mechanisms, new design principles can be extracted and used as inspiration for smart artificial systems endowed with embodied intelligence. This mini-review systematically collects, for the first time together, the morphological, structural, biomechanical and aerodynamic information from selected plant seeds relevant to take inspiration for engineering design of soft robots, and discusses potential future developments in the field across material science, plant biology, robotics and embodied intelligence.

Understanding and monitoring natural ecosystems is necessary for an efficient implementation of sustainable strategies to tackle climate and environmental-related challenges, such as: protect and improve the quality of air, water, and soil; safeguard species biodiversity; and effectively manage natural resources. A longstanding challenge for environmental monitoring is the low spatial and temporal resolution of available data for many regions. Also, new approaches for the design of sustainable technologies is urgently needed to reduce current problems related to energy costs and e-waste produced.

It has been 10 years since the publication of the first article looking at plants as a biomechatronic system and as model for robotics. Now, roboticists have started to look at plants differently and consider them as a model in the field of bioinspired robotics. Despite plants have been seen traditionally as passive entities, in reality they are able to grow, move, sense, and communicate. These features make plants an exceptional example of morphological computation - with probably the highest level of adaptability among all living beings. They are a unique model to design robots that can act in- and adapt to- unstructured, extreme, and dynamically changing environments exposed to sudden or long-term events. Although plant-inspired robotics is still a relatively new field, it has triggered the concept of growing robotics: an emerging area in which systems are designed to create their own body, adapt their morphology, and explore different environments. There is a reciprocal interest between biology and robotics: plants represent an excellent source of inspiration for achieving new robotic abilities, and engineering tools can be used to reveal new biological information. This way, a bidirectional biology-robotics strategy provides mutual benefits for both disciplines. This mini-review offers a brief overview of the fundamental aspects related to a bioengineering approach in plant-inspired robotics. It analyses the works in which both biological and engineering aspects have been investigated, and highlights the key elements of plants that have been milestones in the pioneering field of growing robots.

Bioinspiration is a popular trend in robotics research. Bioinspired design needs a deep knowledge of the selected biological model in order to extract the key features relevant to the design of the robot system. The octopus is an ideal model for soft robotics and has served as inspiration for the development of octopus-like robots and robot arms. The muscular hydrostat that composes the octopus arms is one of the key principles to imitate from the octopus, as well as the arm suckers. An engineering analysis and measurements is required, especially to understand the dimensions of deformations, the stiffness variability, the forces applied, the working principles of reaching and adhesion. We developed methods for measuring the octopus arm in vivo and we measured elongation and shortening, pulling force, stiffening, and morphology, quantitatively. The resulting data were used to create novel design principles and specifications used in developing new soft robots.

The setting for this issue’s “Women in Engineering” column is Estonia, sometimes referred to as e-Estonia for its innovative digital services and startups. Fifteen years ago, Maarja Kruusmaa cofounded the Intelligent Materials and Systems Laboratory at the Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, and five years later, she founded the Centre for Biorobotics at the Tallinn University of Technology. Current research interests for Kruusmaa are bioinspired robots, soft robots, underwater robots, experimental fluid dynamics, and flow sensing.

Reports on the activities and goals of the Robohub, a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting the robotics community to the public. Robohub has been launched as a way to bring all the best robotics content together in one place and make it easy for the public to learn about real robots from the people who make them. By enabling roboticists to share their stories in their own words and by making research transparent and accessible, Robohub aims to fill the gap between researchers and the public, inspire future roboticists, spur innovation, and drive discussion. Robohub supporters are proactive for supporting women in robotics and promoting their visibility.

Discusses the prospects for robotics in the medical field, with particular emphasis on uses in surgery and physical therapy.

Presents information on signing up to Chair the IEEE RAS Women in Engineering Committee.

Presents highlights from the first World of Drones Congress that was held in Brisbane, Australia from 31 August to 2 September 2017.