This thesis describes the concept of programmable materials with tunable physical properties applicable to soft robots. We present these materials for three major applications in soft robotics: sensing, actuation, and robotic manipulation. The strain sensors recognize the internal stimuli in a soft robot, whereas the conductors collect the sensors’ signals to the control part. In the first part, we want to develop both stretchable strain sensors and conductors from a single material by programming a nanowire network’s electrical property, which we achieve through Electrical Welding (e-welding). We demonstrate the transformation of a Silver Nanowire (AgNW)-polymer sponge from a strain sensor to a stretchable conductor through e-welding. Using this method, we produced a soft hybrid e-skin having both a sensor and conductor from a single material. In the second part, we propose new active actuation solutions by obtaining quick, tunable pressure inside a soft material that we achieve through a liquid-gas phase transition of a stored liquid using an efficient electrode. We discuss the significant design variables to improve the performance and propose a new design for the electrodes, for enhancing actuation speed. We propose using low voltage equipment to trigger the phase transition to produce compact actuation technology for portable applications. Using this method, we produced a portable soft gripper. In the third and last part, we want to develop a simple robotic manipulation technology using a single-chambered soft body instead of a multi-chambered system. We propose using on-demand stiffness change in soft material to control the shape change of a single-chambered soft body. For this, we introduce a new concept of a stiffness tunable hybrid fiber: a fiber with stiff and soft parts connected in a series. We demonstrate a substantial change in membrane stiffness in the fiber through locking/unlocking of the soft part of the fiber. We integrated these fibers into a pneumatically operated single-chambered soft body to control its stiffness for on-demand shape change. If applied together, these three concepts could result in a fully printable, cheap, light, and easily controllable new generation soft robots with augmented functionalities.

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