Project description
Hardware-encoded adaptation in soft robotics
Current soft robotics using spin-crossover (SCO) materials face hurdles such as slow speeds and weak force, preventing real-world applications. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SPINS project aims to overcome these limitations by developing a comprehensive design toolbox to tailor responsive SCO composites for specific robotic needs. Rather than simple sensors, these materials will serve as ‘hardware-encoded’ components within fluid-powered systems. By building structural units that respond to heat, SPINS seeks to enable machines to autonomously adjust shapes and gait patterns without electronic controllers. The project’s ultimate goal is to establish the foundation for a new generation of material-driven robots that use physical computation to achieve complex logic and adapt naturally to their environment.
Objective
Although spin-crossover (SCO) composites are increasingly studied in academia, including for soft-robot actuation, due to their unique stimuli-responses, real-world applications remain absent. This is mainly due to (i) limited understanding of structure–property relations needed to tailor SCO composites for applications, and (ii) inherent drawbacks of SCO-based actuation, such as low force output, small deformations, and slow dynamics. This interdisciplinary SPINS project addresses these challenges by (i) developing a comprehensive toolbox for designing SCO composites, linking matrix composition, filler type, loading, dispersion, and orientation to their mechanical, thermal, and responsive properties (transition temperature, anisotropy, hysteresis), and (ii) for the first time, repositioning SCO composites in soft robotics from basic actuators/sensors to hardware-encoded adaptation components within fluidically actuated systems. By exploiting programmable transition temperature, hysteresis, and anisotropy to achieve thermal latch/unlatch behavior, the project combines fast and powerful actuation with autonomous adaptation. This will enable a new class of electronic- and software-free soft robots that generate complex motions and adapt to external stimuli—such as temperature—solely through the intrinsic interaction of SCO composites with their environment. To achieve this, soft robotic structural, actuation, and logic units will be constructed from SCO composites, leveraging their stimuli-responsive behavior to achieve adaptable characteristics. Next, SPINS will establish design principles for combining these SCO-based units in soft robots, enabling systems that autonomously adjust geometry, actuation profiles, and gait patterns in response to stimuli. Consequently, this work will provide a framework for the NextGen of truly material-driven soft robots, while illustrating the broader potential of SCO composites in applications that exploit such physical computation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology materials engineering composites
- natural sciences chemical sciences polymer sciences
- natural sciences mathematics pure mathematics geometry
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering robotics
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium
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