Soft robotics deals with the development of soft and flexible robots made of elastic materials. These properties allow the robots to be used in sensitive areas or environments that are difficult to access. The current, often experiment-driven design of soft robots requires a great deal of time and resources and is usually application-specific.

The following are suitable for calculating the movement of soft robots

• the nonlinear finite element method
• geometrically accurate beam models.

In the following video, a simulation based on a geometrically accurate beam model is used to derive the working space for a given geometry of a soft pneumatic bending actuator.