Peripheral control enabled by distributed sensing in an octopus-inspired soft robotic arm for autonomous underwater grasping

Nature Machine Intelligence, Published online: 12 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s42256-026-01230-y Del Dottore et al. present an octopus-inspired soft robotic arm that uses optoelectronic mechanosensors in its suction cups to detect contact forces and infer object positions.