The ANSWER project developed new autonomous, soft robots structures without conventional electronics, which can interact with their environment as compliant biological structures. The project led to the first totally compliant biomimetic robots, without conventional electronics, which only needs a direct current supply voltage to fulfill biomimetic, predicted tasks and smartly interact with its environment.

Those robots are based on compliant mechanical structures, combined with dielectric sensor-, switch- and actuator networks. The multi-functional sub units are distributed through the robotic structures. These integrated structures possess all functions required for self-diagnosis, -regulation and interaction with their environment. For that reason, sensor- and signal-processing as well as control units have been integrated onto a dielectric elastomer membrane using compliant electrodes with different electrical properties, such as resistance, capacitance and piezo-resistivity. All these components only consist of polymer-conductive filler mixtures.