Soft Prosthetic Hand Feels Surroundings via Stretchable Optical Waveguides

Fluid-powered soft actuators have shown potential in applications such as prosthetics and orthotics due to their natural motion. Robots using these actuators require stretchable sensors that can be embedded in their bodies for sophisticated functions; however, these sensors usually rely on the electrical properties of materials and composites to measure a signal and many suffer from hysteresis, complex fabrication, environmental instability, and material incompatibility with soft actuators.