Actuation, sensing, and integration in soft robotics: principles, progress, and future trends

Abstract

Soft robots, characterized by compliance, safety, and environmental adaptability, have shown great potential in healthcare, intelligent manufacturing, and human-machine interaction. Actuation technologies determine motion generation, workspace, and response capability, while sensing technologies provide the information required for perception, feedback, and control. Hence, the development of soft robots toward embodied intelligence raises the demand for both high-performance actuators and accurate multimodal sensors to enable robust control in complex environments. This review summarizes the major actuation strategies for soft robots, highlighting their working principles, advantages, and challenges. On the sensing side, flexible sensors based on different sensing mechanisms are discussed, with emphasis on their working principles, sensing characteristics, advantages, and limitations. Subsequently, recent advances in actuation–sensing integration are reviewed, including strategies for proprioception, exteroception, and multimodal information fusion, which collectively enable precise control and intelligent interaction. Current challenges in soft robots are also critically discussed, and future perspectives are provided for deeply coupled actuation–sensing systems. This review provides a comprehensive perspective on the development of actuation, sensing, and their integration, and is expected to serve as a useful reference for the design of next-generation intelligent soft robotic systems.