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About

Choon Chiang Foo is a pioneering researcher in soft robotics and smart materials, whose work sits at the compelling intersection of bioinspired engineering, dielectric elastomers, and autonomous robotic systems. His research has consistently pushed the boundaries of what soft machines can achieve, drawing inspiration from nature to solve fundamental challenges in actuation, sensing, and locomotion. Foo's most celebrated contribution — an untethered soft robot capable of stable locomotion using soft electrostatic actuators (2018, 242 citations) — demonstrated that fully autonomous soft robots could operate without rigid components or tethered power sources, a landmark achievement in the field. Equally influential is his bioinspired work on snap-buckling actuators mimicking the Venus flytrap, enabling high-speed soft robotic movements with remarkable energy efficiency (2020, 111 citations). His development of transparent soft robots for effective camouflage (2019, 105 citations) opened an entirely new design dimension for robotics, showing how optical concealment could be engineered into functional machines. Beyond locomotion, Foo has advanced dielectric elastomer actuators, origami-based soft robots, metamaterial capacitive sensing arrays, and bio-inspired swim bladders for underwater robotics. With hundreds of citations across diverse applications, his body of work represents a sustained and imaginative contribution to next-generation soft robotic systems.