{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,3]],"date-time":"2026-09-03T09:20:04Z","timestamp":1788427204033,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,7]],"date-time":"2026-05-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1778112000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003725","name":"National Research Foundation of Korea","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["RS-2024-00356951"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RS-2024-00356951"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003725","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Soft Robotics"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Ionic polymer\u2013metal composites (IPMCs) are prominent soft actuators for millimeter-scale robotics due to their large bending deformation and high force-to-weight ratio. This work introduces an integrated soft robotic system featuring a three-channel IPMC gripper attached to a borescope for micromanipulation. A laser ablation technique partitions a single IPMC into three independently actuated channels, simplifying wiring complexity and enabling stable grasping of objects with complex geometries. While the hardware provides effective manipulation, teleoperation in microscale environments presents a significant challenge, as operators struggle to reliably determine contact and grasp stability from 2D visual feedback alone. To address this, we introduce a vision-based operator assistance system. Using a YOLOv8 segmentation model, our system processes the borescope\u2019s video feed in real-time to identify the gripper fingers and target objects, providing clear visual cues for \u201ctouched\u201d and \u201cgrabbed\u201d states. This human-in-the-loop feedback enhances operator precision and consistency and, for the first time, enables a quantitative evaluation of the gripper\u2019s performance. Experimental results demonstrate reliable grasping of diverse objects (0.3\u20136 mm) and validate the system\u2019s ability to provide objective success metrics. This work contributes an integrated and intelligent micromanipulation system that augments human capabilities and establishes a framework for future autonomous control.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/21695172261441906","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,7]],"date-time":"2026-05-07T10:19:41Z","timestamp":1778149181000},"page":"840-849","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Three-Finger Borescope-Mounted IPMC Gripper"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Wonjin","family":"Kim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Soohyun","family":"Lim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sangryul","family":"Kim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jonghyeok","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1548-2394","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sung-Hoon","family":"Ahn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/0964-1726\/7\/6\/001"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/0964-1726\/10\/4\/327"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0032-3861(01)00648-6"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/0964-1726\/21\/7\/075016"},{"issue":"1","key":"e_1_3_2_6_1","first-page":"1","article-title":"A comprehensive survey of ionic polymer metal composite","volume":"3","author":"Tang G","year":"2023","unstructured":"5.Tang G, , Mei D, , Wang Y. 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A Novel Three-Finger IPMC Gripper for Microscale Applications. PhD thesis Texas A&M University; 2007."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_28_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"27.Taylor AV Matsumoto A Carter EJ et al. and Diminished reality for close quarters robotic telemanipulation. In: 2020 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE; 2020 pp. 11531\u201311538.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS45743.2020.9341536"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_29_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364914549607"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_30_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"29.Fang H-S Wang C Gou M et al. and GraspNet-1billion: A large-scale benchmark for general object grasping. In: Proceedings of the IEEE\/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). 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