Dear colleagues and friends,
On behalf of the editorial board, I would like to introduce our new Journal, Soft Robotics (SoRo) to the mechanics community. SoRo is an innovative peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the science and engineering of soft materials in mobile machines. The Journal breaks new ground as the first to answer the urgent need for research on robotic technology that can safely interact with living systems and function in complex natural or human-built environments.
Multidisciplinary in scope, SoRo combines advances in biomedical engineering, biomechanics, mathematical modeling, biopolymer chemistry, computer science, and tissue engineering to provide comprehensive coverage of new approaches to constructing devices that can undergo dramatic changes in shape and size in order to adapt to various environments. This new technology delivers vital applications for a variety of purposes, including surgery, assistive healthcare devices, search and rescue in emergency situations, space instrument repair, mine detection, and more.
Soft Robotics (SoRo) coverage includes:
Soft material creation, characterization, and modeling
Flexible and transient electronics
Soft actuators and sensors
Control and simulation of highly deformable structures
Biomechanics and control of soft animals and tissues
Biohybrid devices and living machines
Design and fabrication of conformable machines
SoRo is under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Barry A. Trimmer, PhD, Henry Bromfield Pearson Professor of Natural Sciences and Director of the Neuromechanics and Biomimetic Devices Laboratory at Tufts University. The five associate editors are:
Josh Bongard, PhD
Department of Computer Science
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
Fumiya Iida, PhD
Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zürich, Switzerland
John H. Long, Jr, PhD
Department of Biology
Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, NY
Nanshu Lu, PhD
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
Qibing Pei, PhD
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
The official launch of the journal was carried out at the Living Machines Conference (sponsored by the Convergent Science Network of Biomimetic and Bio-hybrid systems) in London in August, 2013. The preview issue includes an editorial article from the editor-in-chief, a perspective and five state-of-the-field reviews, and a round table discussion attended by all the authors. There is ever growing interest in soft active materials and soft machines in the mechanics community and please consider submitting your manuscripts to SoRo whenever there is a chance. Your support and contribution will make SoRo a truly interdisciplinary and international journal!
Thank you for your interest.
Nanshu