Motivation
The field of soft robotics has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, drawing interest due to the utility of soft robots in applications involving handling of fragile objects or close collaboration with humans, their relatively low cost and light weight, and their resistance to impact and harsh conditions. To fully realize these advantages, researchers are now investigating methods to simplify or replace the existing hard, bulky control infrastructure ubiquitous to soft robots with a combination of onboard control methods and advances in external software control. Research in this area has been fast-paced, with many concurrent and complementary developments in just the past three years, but opportunities for further advances remain. This workshop will bring together a diverse group of researchers investigating the simplified control of soft robots to identify promising future directions.

Invited Speakers
(in alphabetical order by last name; confirmed speakers in bold)

Dr. Siavash Ahrar California State University, Long Beach	Dr. Katia Bertoldi Harvard University	Dr. Helmut Hauser The University of Bristol	Dr. Robert Katzschmann ETH Zürich
Dr. Kohei Nakajima University of Tokyo	Dr. Markus Nemitz Worcester Polytechnic Institute	Dr. Philipp Rothemund Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems	Dr. Ryan Sochol University of Maryland
Dr. Adam Stokes The University of Edinburgh	Dr. Michael Tolley UC San Diego	Dr. Ryan L. Truby Northwestern University