Self-healing polymers make for tougher soft robots

Robotic teams around the world are working on soft robots, because some situations call for a touch gentler than what a rigid machine can give. They can squish into tight locations for search-and-rescue missions, for instance, and pick up fragile objects without breaking or damaging them. Unfortunately, they're also more prone to damage, especially if they're bound to come across sharp edges in their environments. To solve that problem, a team of researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium have developed a way to create soft machines that can heal themselves -- all you have to do is add heat. The researchers proved that their method works by making a gripper, a robotic hand and an artificial muscle with self-healing properties.