Soft robot for deep-sea exploration listed as one of China's top 10 scientific breakthroughs in 2021

China's 10 top scientific advances of 2021 were unveiled on Feb 28 by the Ministry of Science and Technology's High Technology Research and Development Center. A self-powered deep-sea soft robot developed by Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Lab was on the list.

An illustration of the self-powered deep-sea soft robot in the Mariana Trench. [Photo/Website of Zhejiang Lab]

The research team from East China's Zhejiang province created the world's first soft robot that can be operated 10,000 meters under the ocean's surface and completed the world's first deep-sea free-swimming test of a soft robot, in the Mariana Trench.