Embodied AI for Soft and Bio-Inspired Robotics
A special issue of Robotics (ISSN 2218-6581). This special issue belongs to the section "Soft Robotics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 65
Special Issue Editors
2. Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya 4648601, Japan
Interests: AI for hydrogen storage; robotics; deep learning; large language model (LLM)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The integration of Embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) with soft and bio-inspired robotics is opening new frontiers for creating adaptive, intelligent, and resilient robotic systems. Unlike conventional rigid machines, soft and bio-inspired robots leverage morphology, material intelligence, and distributed sensing to interact more safely and effectively with complex environments. When combined with embodied AI, such robots can achieve advanced capabilities in perception, control, learning, and decision-making, enabling them to adapt dynamically, collaborate with humans, and operate in unstructured real-world scenarios.
This Special Issue has a broad and inclusive scope that aims to bring together contributions that will advance the design, modeling, control, and application of embodied AI in robotics. We welcome both theoretical and applied works addressing computational methods, learning-based frameworks, novel materials, and interdisciplinary approaches that bridge robotics, AI, neuroscience, biology, and cognitive science.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Safety and trustworthiness in embodied AI for soft and bio-inspired robotics;
Learning-based control, reinforcement learning, and adaptive decision-making in robotics;
Embodied multimodal perception (vision, tactile, proprioception, audio);
Human–robot interaction, social embodiment, and trust in autonomy;
Generative design, simulation-to-reality transfer, and digital twins for embodied systems;
Multi-agent systems, swarm robotics, and collective intelligence in embodied AI and bio-inspired systems;
Safety, ethics, and explainability in AI-driven robotics;
Self-supervised and unsupervised learning for robotic systems;
Tactile sensing, haptics, and embodied manipulation;
Energy-efficient and sustainable robotic systems.
Dr. Yanhong Peng
Dr. Zhen Tian
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Robotics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- soft robotics
- bio-inspired robotics
- morphological computation
- embodied cognition
- autonomous robots
- Intelligent planning
- learning-based system
- multi-agent systems
- human–robot interaction
- robotics applications
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