软体机械手(下面简称软体手)是一种由柔性材料制成的新型机械装置。凭借柔性材料天然的柔顺性和适应性，软体机械手具有了高灵活性、复杂环境适应性和安全人机交互性等特点，受到国内外学者和机构的广泛研究，并表现出良好的应用前景。综述了软体机械手的应用领域、驱动方式、材料与制造、建模与控制的相关问题，并梳理了软体机械手研究中依旧存在的问题和可能的解决方案以及软体机械手的发展趋势。软体机械手是软体机器人领域的一个重要分支，其研究涉及材料学、力学、化学、机械设计与制造、电子与控制科学以及仿生学等诸多领域的交叉和融合。对软体机械手的研究将极大丰富人们对柔性材料的复杂、丰富特性的理解，也将为更好地把柔性材料融入产品的设计提供理论和技术指导。

Soft-bodied manipulators are new type of mechanical devices mainly made of soft materials,which possess the characteristics of high flexibility,good adaptation in complex environment and safe human-machine interaction because of the flexibility and passive adaptability of soft materials. The soft-bodied manipulators have been intensively studied and shown great potential applications. The review of existing soft-bodied manipulators in terms of applications,actuation methods,materials and fabrication,modeling and control is presented. The current issues and possible solutions are also discussed. Soft-bodied manipulators are an important branch of soft robotics,which involves a combination of material science,mechanics,chemistry,mechanical design and manufacture,electronic and control science and biology. The study of soft-bodied manipulators will greatly enrich people’s understanding of the complex and rich characteristics of soft materials,and will provide theoretical and technical guidance for integrating soft materials into design of products.