On 25th June, the Fifth Online Academic Forum on "Frontiers in Bionic Engineering" jointly organized by the Youth Commission of ISBE and Jilin University, was successfully held via zoom platform. Prof. Li Wen, the recipient of the Chinese National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars from Beihang University was invited to share his latest research progress in the field of bio-inspired physical intelligence for soft robots. The forum was presided over by Prof. Jianing Wu from Sun Yat-sen University.

Soft robots are compliant, light-weight, and multifunctional, and these properties offer many advantages over existing rigid robots for a diverse range of underwater applications. Prof. Wen had mainly introduced the recent progress of his group including the marine bio-inspired adhesive components for underwater soft robots, aerial-aquatic robots capable of cross air/water boundary and hitchhiking on surfaces, and octopus inspired tentacle for sensing and delicate grasping. The morphology and material properties of biological disc were deeply revealed, and the key technologies and methods for realizing bio-inspired physical intelligence of soft robots have been demonstrated, thus providing a new idea for the design of soft robots.

Hundreds of scholars and graduate students from over 50 universities and research institutes around the world attended the forum online, which included London South Bank University of UK, Westfaelische Hochschule of Germany, Vanda University of South Africa, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Cairo University of Egypt, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Tsinghua University, Beihang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Jilin University, Sun Yat-sen University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Hunan University, Shenyang Agricultural University, Henan University of Science and Technology, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou Dianzi University, etc.

"Frontiers in Bionic Engineering" online academic forum is a series of academic activities initiated by the Youth Commission of ISBE. It aims to establish an academic exchange platform for the bionic scholars around the world to share their latest research ideas and achievements and further promote the innovation cooperation as well as the development of bionic discipline. The activity has gained great attention and support of ISBE members, and received enthusiastic responses.