软体机械臂由柔性材料制作，具有高柔顺性、复杂环境适应性及安全人机交互性等特点，研究涉及材料学、仿生、机械设计和制造、传感器技术等多学科交叉融合，其发展为柔性材料应用、仿生机器人研究等提供参考和技术支持，在工业生产、医疗手术、救灾探测、生活护理等方面具有广阔应用前景，受到国内外学者及机构的广泛关注和研究。文章从仿生原理、驱动方式、变刚度方式、建模及控制等方面对软体机械臂研究进行综述，介绍章鱼臂及象鼻等生物结构仿生机理；按驱动类型将软体机械臂分为流体驱动、线驱动、气动人工肌肉、形状记忆合金、电活性聚合物、混合驱动等；介绍拮抗机构、阻塞、材料相变三种变刚度方式；以及目前常用于软体机械臂上的建模方法及控制策略。从中归纳和分析，得到软体机械臂的关键问题包括可重复性、精度、低输出力和建模控制等，其关键技术及未来发展方向包括新柔性材料制备和成型技术、刚柔结合/可变刚度机器人、柔性传感器技术等。

Soft manipulators are new type of machine mainly made of soft materials. They possess the characteristics of high flexibility, good adaptability to complex environment and safely human-machine interactivity. New soft material and fabrication, the variable stiffening, the flexible sensor are proposed as the key technology and the promising potential research directions of soft manipulators. The research involves a combination of material science, bionics, mechanics and sensor technology. And it provides theoretical and technical guidance for application of soft materials and bionic research. The soft manipulators have been intensively studied for their wide application prospects in the fields of industrial production, minimally invasive surgery, rescue, Nursing Gerontology and so on. The review of existing soft manipulators in terms of bionic principle, actuation, stiffening methods, modeling and control is presented. The bionic mechanism from octopus arms and elephant trunks is introduced. Soft manipulators are summarized as FEA, TDA, PAM, SMA, EAP and hybrid mode by their actuating mechanisms. The methods of stiffening are summarized as antagonistic, jamming and phase change. The common modeling methods and control strategies are also introduced. The difficulties, current issues and possible solutions are discussed. The lack of repeatability, precision, lower output force, modeling and control method can be summarized as limiting factors for their applications. The key technology and future development include the preparation and molding technology, rigid flexible combination/variable stiffness robot, flexible sensor technology and so on.