Does the future of robotics lie in soft robots rather than in their hard robot counterparts? A team from Harvard University seems to think so. The team led by chemist George M. Whitesides has built a soft robot that can squeeze and undulate through tight spaces.

The soft robot which is based on animals like squids, starfish and other animals without hard skeletons, is built using flexible materials known as "elastomers".

"Instead of basing this and other designs on highly evolved animals as models, we are using simpler organisms for inspiration," the team writes in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These organisms, ones without internal skeletons, suggest designs that are simpler to make and are less expensive than conventional hard robots, and that may, in some respects, be more capable of complex motions and functions."

The flexible robot motion is controlled by a series of chambers within the elastomer layer that can be inflated with compressed air. The air is fed through tubes attached to the robot. The limbs of the starfish robot are capable of a series of motions like crawling or slithering that hard robots are incapable of. The team demonstrated their creation's flexibility by making it squeeze underneath a glass plate 2 centimeters above the ground. The robot was able to squeeze through in less than a minute by using a series of coordinated movements.

Soft robots are the latest development in robot technology. Eschewing the rigid design of current hard robots, soft robots are more resistant to damage in a real-world scenario like falling rocks and they can squeeze in places that hard robots cannot go. This ability makes soft robots better suited than hard robots to go into disaster areas or to scout out a battlefield. The Harvard robot can travel on a variety of surfaces like gravel, mud and even Jell-O.

There are drawbacks to the design. The skin the robot is encased in can be punctured with sharp objects. The robot doesn't have an independent power source. The robot is still slow but the Harvard group is working on improving that and finding a way to integrate a power source.

Despite the current obstacles to soft robots there are still numerous benefits to developing this design. Inflatable robots can be easily unpacked and deployed. They are versatile and durable if they can avoid getting punctured. They are also cheap and easy to make. The materials used for the Harvard robot cost about $5 and the prototype was manufactured in about two hours. If scientists can develop materials that won't be easily torn or punctured, soft robots can go anywhere.