--- title: Pressure-free growing robots for soft medical robotics description: Researchers at the University of Leeds won the Best Paper Award at RoboSoft 2026 for developing a 1.8 mm soft growing robot that operates without internal air... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/pressure-free-growing-robots-for-soft-medical-robotics-psg8pdbjf twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Pressure-free growing robots for soft medical robotics | daily.dev og:description: Researchers at the University of Leeds won the Best Paper Award at RoboSoft 2026 for developing a 1.8 mm soft growing robot that operates without internal air... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/pressure-free-growing-robots-for-soft-medical-robotics-psg8pdbjf og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/psg8pdbjF.png og:image:alt: Pressure-free growing robots for soft medical robotics og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Pressure-free growing robots for soft medical robotics **[Robohub](https://daily.dev/sources/robohub)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Researchers at the University of Leeds won the Best Paper Award at RoboSoft 2026 for developing a 1.8 mm soft growing robot that operates without internal air pressure. The robot uses magnetic particles embedded in its silicone body to achieve simultaneous steering and real-time shape sensing at up to 500 Hz. Unlike earlier pressure-driven vine robots, this design eliminates the risk of air leaks in fluid-filled anatomical spaces such as near the spine or inside blood vessels. The robot demonstrated retroflexion and biome sampling in an ex vivo stomach model, showing it can perform clinically relevant endoscopic maneuvers. Near-term goals include pre-clinical safety and biocompatibility testing, with longer-term interest in neural and spinal electrode placement applications. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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