The advent of soft robotics represents a profound change in the forms robots will take in the future. However, this revolutionary change has already yielded such a diverse collection of robots that attempts at defining this group do not reflect many existing 'soft' robots. This paper aims to address this issue by scrutinising a number of descriptions of soft robots arising from a literature review with the intention of determining a coherent meaning for soft. We also present a classification of existing soft robots to initiate the development of a soft robotic ontology. Finally, discrepancies in prescribed ranges of Young's modulus, a frequently used criterion for the selection of soft materials, are explained and discussed. A detailed visual comparison of these ranges and supporting data is also presented.

中文翻译：

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走向软机器人的本体：什么是软的？

软机器人技术的出现代表了机器人未来形式的深刻变化。但是，这种革命性的变化已经产生了如此多样化的机器人集合，试图定义该组的尝试并没有反映出许多现有的“软”机器人。本文旨在通过审查文献综述中对软机器人的许多描述来解决这个问题，以期确定软软件的连贯含义。我们还提出了现有软机器人的分类，以启动软机器人本体的开发。最后，解释和讨论了杨氏模量的规定范围内的差异，杨氏模量是选择软材料的常用标准。还提供了这些范围和支持数据的详细视觉比较。