Robotics is often imagined as metal, motors and rigid industrial arms. Yet 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 robotics, where machines are designed to bend, stretch and adapt rather than simply push, clamp and repeat.
Canada has several visible strengths in this area. The University of Toronto Robotics Institute describes itself as the country’s largest and most diversified robotics programme, with work spanning surgical robots, assistive systems, micro- and nano-sized robots, stretchable electronics, soft robotic systems and smart materials. At the same time, Waterloo, McGill, Queen’s and other Canadian institutions are developing soft robotic devices for healthcare, rehabilitation, drug delivery, advanced materials and industrial manipulation.
Soft robotics comes into sharper focus
A sign of Canada’s growing profile came in 2025, when researchers from the University of Toronto Robotics Institute participated in the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics, RoboSoft 2025, in Lausanne. The institute highlighted soft robotics as a field transforming how machines interact with the world by using flexibility and adaptability to create safer, more responsive technologies for sectors such as healthcare and manufacturing.
Two University of Toronto graduate student papers were shortlisted as spotlight papers from around 400 submissions. One examined control methods for displacement-actuated continuum robots, allowing algorithms and data to be reused across soft robots with different joint layouts. Another explored structured pneumatic fingerpads that can actively tune grip friction by changing surface shape using air pressure.
The latter example is commercially significant. Many manufacturing and logistics operations involve objects that are fragile, irregular, slippery or variable in size. Conventional rigid grippers often require careful programming and can damage products. Soft robotic grippers, especially those with tunable friction and tactile response, could reduce product damage and improve automated handling in food processing, pharmaceuticals, electronics, agriculture and e-commerce fulfilment.
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 by the Waterloo Microfluidics Laboratory, led by Professor Carolyn Ren, to create soft-robotic wearable technologies for people living with lymphedema after cancer treatment.
Lymphedema can occur when lymph nodes are removed or damaged, leading to painful swelling as lymphatic fluid fails to drain properly. Existing compression therapy devices can rely on bulky control boxes, multiple valves and wall power, restricting patient mobility during treatment. Waterloo’s prototype integrates a pump, valves and a microfluidic chip into a compact unit roughly the size and weight of a smartphone. Paired with lightweight inflatable chambers 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 fast-growing market at the intersection of medical devices, rehabilitation, wearables and home healthcare. Ageing populations, cancer survivorship and pressure on healthcare systems are creating demand for technologies that move treatment away from clinics and into daily life. A portable compression sleeve that improves usability and lowers cost could interest medical device companies, insurers, rehabilitation providers and healthcare systems trying to manage chronic conditions more efficiently.
Waterloo is also working on air microfluidics and soft robots as body-worn assistive technologies for musculoskeletal conditions. The research goal is to develop functional, affordable and lightweight apparel that can improve mobility and quality of life, using microfluidic and soft wearable robotic approaches rather than conventional rigid braces or exoskeletons.
Another Waterloo-led project shows how soft robotics may 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 guided strips containing urease, an enzyme that lowers local acidity and helps dissolve stones where they form. The system has been tested in a life-size 3D-printed model and is intended to be guided by doctors using a robotic arm and real-time imaging. The aim 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 is not replacing clinicians but extending what clinicians can do. If such systems mature, they could create opportunities for urology device manufacturers, imaging companies, surgical robotics firms and hospital innovation groups. It also illustrates a wider commercial trend: robotics is moving from large capital equipment toward targeted, procedure-specific tools.
The materials revolution
Soft robotics depends 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 area of work involves soft pneumatic actuators with zero-power locking, allowing shape retention in extension and bending without continuous energy input. This is important because one limitation of many soft robots is that they require constant pressure or power to maintain a shape or load. Zero-power shape retention could reduce energy consumption, improve safety and make devices more practical for portable, wearable or field-based settings. McGill’s work also includes snap-through buckling and soft pneumatic valves, with research updates in 2025 and 2026 showing continued development in reprogrammable soft pneumatic metamaterials and related structures.
For industry, this has implications beyond robotics itself. Reconfigurable soft materials could be relevant to aerospace structures, packaging, deployable systems, adaptive manufacturing fixtures, energy absorption and ergonomic tools. McGill’s research page explicitly links mechanical metamaterials and reconfigurable structures to 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 microrobots as minimally invasive tools for studying and treating disease, including work aimed at reaching difficult anatomical sites such as brain tumours, lung nodules and the gastrointestinal tract.
This research sits at the boundary between soft robotics, microrobotics, medical devices and precision medicine. For business, the value lies in platform potential. Microrobots that can measure tissue mechanics, deliver therapeutics 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 broader robotics and AI infrastructure through Ingenuity Labs, which focuses on intelligent systems, robotic machines, human-machine interaction, sensors and actuators, with applications from manufacturing and mining to healthcare and accessibility.
Commercial significance: Safer automation
Soft robotics is attractive to business because it addresses a practical limitation of traditional automation: rigid machines are powerful but often poorly suited to unstructured environments. Soft robots are more adaptable around people and variable materials. This makes them suited to agriculture, food handling, laboratory automation, hospital logistics, rehabilitation, assistive care and advanced manufacturing.
Canadian commercial relevance is reinforced by the broader robotics ecosystem. The University of Toronto’s 2025 Toronto Robotics Conference emphasized applications from logistics and mobility to healthcare, including surgical robots, mobile manipulation, soft robotics and computer vision. The Canadian Robotics Council argues that robotics-fuelled economic development is within Canada’s reach and aims to unite research, industry, government and training excellence across the national ecosystem.
Soft robotic grippers offer a particularly direct route into business. A Mitacs project on mechanically compliant soft robotic grippers for automated harvesting highlights the opportunity for Canadian farmers to improve yield quality, reduce labour costs and increase revenues by using pneumatic soft grippers that conform to delicate produce such as mushrooms. This type of application is highly relevant as agriculture faces labour shortages and demand rises for automation that can handle fragile, irregular biological products.
In earlier years, soft robotics was often presented as a promising research field. In 2025 and 2026, the emphasis is shifting toward application-specific devices: cancer recovery sleeves, kidney stone treatment robots, tuneable gripper surfaces, reprogrammable pneumatic metamaterials and biomedical microrobots. The associated business case is that soft robotics can automate tasks that are too delicate, variable or human-centred for conventional robotics. It can also create new product categories in healthcare and rehabilitation, where comfort, safety and adaptability matter as much as mechanical performance.
