Untethered Soft Robots: Embedded Actuation, Sensing, and Intelligence

Recent progress in soft materials, fabrication, and bioinspired design has significantly expanded the capabilities of soft robots in locomotion, manipulation, wearable assistance, biomedical devices, and underwater systems. At the same time, the field is shifting from isolated demonstrations of soft actuators or soft structures toward integrated robotic systems that combine multifunctional materials, body-embedded sensing, flexible electronics, and intelligent control. Untethered operation is emerging as a critical milestone in this transition, because it directly relates to autonomy, portability, and deployment in complex environments. Achieving this goal requires not only improved soft actuators and sensors, but also new approaches to system integration, energy management, state estimation, and embodied or onboard intelligence.Soft robots have demonstrated unique advantages in safe interaction, adaptability, and operation in uncertain environments. However, many existing systems still depend on off-board power supplies, pneumatic lines, tethered control units, or bulky external sensing hardware. These constraints limit mobility, autonomy, miniaturization, and real-world deployment. This Research Topic aims to address the scientific and engineering challenges required to enable truly untethered soft robotic systems, in which actuation, sensing, and intelligence are embedded within the robot body or integrated into compact onboard architectures. By bringing together advances in materials, device design, electronics, mechanics, and control, this collection seeks to identify the principles and technologies that can move soft robots from laboratory demonstrations toward robust, self-contained, and application-ready platforms.This Research Topic welcomes original research articles, reviews, perspectives, and methods papers on untethered soft robotic systems and their enabling technologies. Relevant themes include, but are not limited to, embedded actuation for self-contained operation; integrated soft sensing for proprioception, tactile feedback, and environmental perception; stretchable and flexible electronics; onboard power, wireless energy transfer, and energy management; compact control hardware; embedded computation; state estimation; model-based and learning-based control; embodied intelligence; multifunctional materials; and fabrication strategies for tightly integrated soft systems. Application-oriented studies are also encouraged, including but not limited to wearable robots, medical and assistive devices, soft manipulators, locomotion platforms, underwater soft robots, and field-deployable systems. Contributions should ideally advance both fundamental understanding and practical realization of untethered soft robots. Topic editors: Fanghao Zhou, Ruiqian Wang, Tingyu Cheng Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80235/untethered-soft-robots-embedded-actuation-sensing-and-intelligence