The consortium “MAgnEtic SofT matter for RobotIcs” (acronym MAESTRI) is composed of 7 academic and 2 industrial partners. Further, 3 associated partners are involved in training 9 Doctoral Candidates (DCs). The title of the consortium indicates the main concept of the proposed doctoral network (DN), reflecting the demand for training a new kind of expert in the emerging application field of magnetic soft robotics that we believe will yield groundbreaking technologies in the near future.

The MAESTRI DN aims to go beyond these limitations by developing smart soft materials with adaptable and self-sensing properties for robotics. To do so, we will focus on an alternative group of soft materials that are controlled by external magnetic fields. The main goal of the joint research programme of the DN team (including experts from basic science, technological development and implementation, industrial exploitation, and commercialization) is to explore magnetic tunability of the relevant properties, shape adaptation, and self-sensing properties of magnetoactive soft materials for real-world robotic applications.