In recent years, the field of soft robotics has gained much attention by virtue of its aptness to work in certain environments unsuitable for traditional rigid robotics. Along with the uprising field of soft robotics is the increased attention to soft actuators which provide soft machines the ability to move, manipulate, and deform actively. This article provides a focused review of various high-performance and novel electrically driven soft actuators due to their fast response, controllability, softness, and compactness. Furthermore, this review aims to act as a reference guide for building electrically driven soft machines. The focus of this paper lies on the actuation principle of each type of actuator, comprehensive performance comparison across different actuators, and up-to-date applications of each actuator. The range of actuators includes electro-static soft actuators, electro-thermal soft actuators, and electrically driven soft pumps.
Keywords: electrically driven actuators; soft actuators; soft pumps; soft robotics.