Intelligent soft matter : towards embodied intelligence

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Baulin, Vladimir A. and Giacometti, Achille and Fedosov, Dmitry A. and Ebbens, Stephen and Varela-Rosales, Nydia R. and Feliu, Neus and Chowdhury, Mithun and Hu, Minghan and Füchslin, Rudolf and Dijkstra, Marjolein and Mussel, Matan and van Roij, René and Xie, Dong and Tzanov, Vassil and Zu, Mengjie and Hidalgo-Caballero, Samuel and Yuan, Ye and Cocconi, Luca and Ghim, Cheol-Min and Cottin-Bizonne, Cécile and Miguel, M. Carmen and Esplandiu, Maria Jose and Simmchen, Juliane and Parak, Wolfgang J. and Werner, Marco and Gompper, Gerhard and Hanczyc, Martin M. (2025) Intelligent soft matter : towards embodied intelligence. Soft Matter, 21 (21). pp. 4129-4145. ISSN 1744-6848 (https://doi.org/10.1039/d5sm00174a)

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Abstract

Intelligent soft matter lies at the intersection of materials science, physics, and cognitive science, promising to change how we design and interact with materials. This transformative field aims to create materials with life-like capabilities, such as perception, learning, memory, and adaptive behavior. Unlike traditional materials, which typically perform static or predefined functions, intelligent soft matter can dynamically interact with its environment, integrating multiple sensory inputs, retaining past experiences, and making decisions to optimize its responses. Inspired by biological systems, these materials leverage the inherent properties of soft matter such as flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness to perform functions that mimic cognitive processes. By synthesizing current research trends and projecting their evolution, we present a forward-looking perspective on how intelligent soft matter could be constructed, with the aim of inspiring innovations in areas such as biomedical devices, adaptive robotics, and beyond. We highlight new pathways for integrating sensing, memory and actuation with low-power internal operations, and we discuss key challenges in realizing materials that exhibit truly “intelligent behavior”. These approaches outline a path toward more robust, versatile, and scalable materials that can potentially act, compute, and “think” through their inherent intrinsic material properties—moving beyond traditional smart technologies that rely on external control.

ORCID iDs

Baulin, Vladimir A., Giacometti, Achille, Fedosov, Dmitry A., Ebbens, Stephen, Varela-Rosales, Nydia R., Feliu, Neus, Chowdhury, Mithun, Hu, Minghan, Füchslin, Rudolf, Dijkstra, Marjolein, Mussel, Matan, van Roij, René, Xie, Dong, Tzanov, Vassil, Zu, Mengjie, Hidalgo-Caballero, Samuel, Yuan, Ye, Cocconi, Luca, Ghim, Cheol-Min, Cottin-Bizonne, Cécile, Miguel, M. Carmen, Esplandiu, Maria Jose, Simmchen, Juliane ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9073-9770, Parak, Wolfgang J., Werner, Marco, Gompper, Gerhard and Hanczyc, Martin M.;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)