Soft robots have made impressive progress on land and underwater, yet transitions between these domains remain a major bottleneck. Many current systems are optimized for a single environment (e.g., crawling on sand, swimming in open water) and fail or require manual intervention when asked to cross shorelines, enter or exit water, or operate close to fragile ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, coral reefs, or tidal flats.

This workshop focuses on soft transitions: How do we design and control soft robots that not only move on land or underwater, but transition seamlessly between land, water surface, and seafloor—with minimal disturbance to sensitive environments?

Topics of interest

• Locomotion transitions
• Robotics inspired biology
• Environment influenced robot design
• CPG based control strategies
• biomechanics of soft bodied animals
• Modular robotic systems
• Sensory augmentation of animals and robots