Robotics is often imagined as metal, motors and rigid industrial arms. However, some of the most interesting Canadian research in 2025 and 2026 is moving in the opposite direction: robots that are flexible, compliant, wearable, inflatable, bio-inspired and sometimes small enough to work inside the body. This is the field of soft roboticswhere machines are designed to bend, stretch and adapt rather than just push, squeeze and repeat.
Canada has some notable strengths in this area. The University of Toronto’s Robotics Institute describes itself as the nation’s largest and most diverse robotics program, with work that includes surgical robots, assistive systems, micro- and nano-sized robots, stretchable electronics, soft robotic systems, and smart materials. at the same time, Waterloo, McGill, of the Queen and other Canadian institutions are developing soft robotics for healthcare, rehabilitation, drug delivery, advanced materials and industrial manipulation.
Soft robotics comes into sharper focus
A sign of Canada’s rising profile came in 2025, when researchers from the University of Toronto’s Robotics Institute participated in the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft RoboticsRoboSoft 2025, in Lausanne. The institute highlighted soft robotics as a field that is transforming the way machines interact with the world by using flexibility and adaptability to create safer and more responsive technologies for sectors such as healthcare and manufacturing.
Two University of Toronto graduate student papers were shortlisted as spotlight papers out of nearly 400 submissions. One examined control methods for continuous displacement-activated robots, allowing algorithms and data to be reused across soft robots with different shared representations. Another explored structured pneumatic finger pads that can actively adjust grip friction by changing the shape of the surface using air pressure.
The last example is commercially important. Many manufacturing and logistics operations involve objects that are fragile, irregular, slippery, or variable in size. Conventional rigid clamps often require careful programming and can damage products. Soft robotic grippersespecially those with tunable friction and tactile response, can reduce product damage and improve automated handling in food processing, pharmaceuticals, electronics, agriculture, and e-commerce fulfillment.
One of the most direct Canadian examples of soft robotics moving toward human benefit comes from the University of Waterloo. In March 2026, Waterloo reported work from Waterloo Microfluidics Laboratoryled by Professor Carolyn Ren, to create soft-robotic dressing technology for people living with lymphedema after cancer treatment.
Lymphedema can occur when lymph nodes are removed or damaged, leading to painful swelling as the lymph fluid does not drain properly. Existing compression therapy devices may rely on large control boxes, multiple valves, and wall power, limiting patient mobility during treatment. Waterloo’s prototype integrates a pump, valves and a microfluidic chip into a compact unit about the size and weight of a smartphone. Accompanied by light inflatable rooms and a long-lasting battery, the sleeve is designed to provide compression therapy while allowing greater freedom of movement.
For business, this type of research points to a rapidly growing market at the intersection of medical devices, rehabilitation, wearables and home healthcare. Population aging, cancer survival and pressure on health care systems are creating demand for technologies that move treatment away from clinics and in everyday life. A removable compression sleeve that improves usability and lowers cost could be of interest to medical device companies, insurers, rehabilitation providers and health care systems trying to manage chronic conditions more efficiently.
Waterloo is also working air microfluidics and soft robots as body-worn assistive technologies for musculoskeletal conditions. The aim of the research is to develop functional, affordable and lightweight clothing that can improve mobility and quality of life, using wearable microfluidic and soft robotic approaches instead of conventional rigid braces or exoskeletons.
Another project led by Waterloo shows how soft robotics can enter minimally invasive medicine. In August 2025, Waterloo researchers reported a soft robotic system designed to treat uric acid kidney stones. The technology uses thin, flexible, magnetically directional strips that contain urease, an enzyme that lowers local acidity and helps dissolve stones where they form. The system has been tested on a life-size 3D printed model and is intended to be guided by doctors using a robotic arm and real-time imaging. The goal is to accelerate stone dissolution and provide an alternative for patients who cannot tolerate oral medication or are poor candidates for surgery.
From a business perspective, this is a classic example of why soft robotics matters: the technology isn’t replacing doctors, it’s expanding what clinicians can do. If such systems mature, could create opportunities for urological device manufacturers, imaging companies, surgical robotics firms and hospital innovation groups. It also illustrates a broader commercial trend: robotics is moving from large capital equipment to targeted, procedure-specific tools.
The materials revolution
Soft robotics relies heavily on materials science. At McGill University, Professor Damiano Pasini’s Architected Metamaterials Group is developing pneumatic metamaterials for fast actuation and safe operation in soft robots. One scope of work includes soft pneumatic actuators with zero-power locking, allowing shape retention in extension and flexion without continuous energy input. This is important because a limitation of many soft robots is that they require constant pressure or power to maintain a shape or load. The zero-power form factor can reduce power consumption, improve security, and make devices more practical for portable, wearable, or field settings. McGill’s work also includes flexible and soft pneumatic valves, with research updates in 2025 and 2026 showing continued development in reprogrammable pneumatic soft metamaterials and related structures.
For the industry, this has implications beyond robotics itself. Soft reconfigurable materials may be important for aerospace structures, packaging, deployable systems, adaptive manufacturing devices, energy absorption, and ergonomic tools. McGill’s research page links explicitly mechanical metamaterials and reconfigurable structures in sectors including aerospace, packaging, deployable structures and soft robotics.
At Queen’s University, Xian Wang’s lab focuses on small-scale robots powered by magnetic, optical, electrical and acoustic fields, with applications in biomedicine. The lab describes the microrobots as minimally invasive tools for the study and treatment of disease, including work aimed at reaching difficult anatomical sites such as brain tumors, lung nodes and the gastrointestinal tract.
This research lies on the border between soft robotics, microrobotics, medical devices and precision medicine. For the business, the value lies in the potential of the platform. Microrobots that can measure tissue mechanics, deliver therapies locally or navigate difficult biological environments could support new medical device ventures and partnerships with oncology, diagnostics and drug delivery companies.
Queen’s also maintains wider robotics and AI infrastructure through Ingenuity Labswhich focuses on intelligent systems, robotic machines, human-machine interaction, sensors and actuators, with applications from manufacturing and mining to healthcare and accessibility.
Business Significance: More secure automation
Soft robotics is attractive to business because it addresses a practical limitation of traditional automation: rigid machines are powerful but often unsuitable for unstructured environments. Soft robots are more adaptable around people and changing materials. This makes them suitable for agriculture, food handling, laboratory automation, hospital logistics, rehabilitation, assisted care and advanced manufacturing.
Canadian commercial importance is reinforced by the broader robotics ecosystem. of University of Toronto Robotics Conference 2025 in Toronto highlighted applications from logistics and mobility to healthcare, including surgical robots, mobile manipulation, soft robotics and computer vision. The Canadian Robotics Council argues that robotics-driven economic development is within Canada’s reach and aims to bring together research, industry, government and training excellence across the national ecosystem.
Robotic soft grippers offer a particularly straightforward route into business. A Mitacs project in mechanically matching soft robotic grippers for automated harvesters highlights the opportunity for Canadian farmers to improve yield quality, reduce labor costs and increase income by using soft pneumatic grippers to match delicate crops like mushrooms. This type of application is very important as agriculture faces labor shortages and the demand for automation that can handle fragile and irregular biological products increases.
In previous years, soft robotics was often presented as a promising research field. In 2025 and 2026, the emphasis is shifting to application-specific devices: cancer recovery sleeves, kidney stone treatment robots, tunable gripping surfaces, reprogrammable pneumatic metamaterials, and biomedical microrobots. The related business case is that soft robotics can automate tasks that are too delicate, variable or human-centric for conventional robotics. It could also create new product categories in healthcare and rehabilitation, where comfort, safety and fit are as important as mechanical performance.
