Robots today rely on rigid components and electric motors based on metal and magnets, making them heavy, unsafe near humans, expensive, and ill-suited for unpredictable environments. Nature, in contrast, makes extensive use of soft materials, such as muscle and skin, and has produced organisms that drastically outperform robots in terms of agility, dexterity, and adaptability.
The Robotic Materials Department aims to fundamentally challenge current limitations of robotic hardware, using an interdisciplinary approach that synergizes concepts from soft matter physics and chemistry with advanced engineering technologies to devise robotic materials that enable creation of intelligent machines that mimic the astonishing capabilities of organisms in nature. We pursue this goal in three main fields of research:
- Soft Robotics. One of our central goals is the development of new classes of actuators – a key component of all robotic systems – that replicate the sweeping success of biological muscle, a masterpiece of evolution featuring astonishing all-around actuation performance, the ability to self-heal after damage, and seamless integration with distributed sensing. Our fundamental research aims to allow practical applications for soft robotic systems that span from industrial automation, over medical and wearable robotics all the way to new types of human-machine interfaces.
- Functional Polymers. In this field of research, we develop new types of polymers with unusual combinations of properties, such as electrical conductivity paired with stretchability, transparency, biocompatibility and the ability to self-heal from mechanical and electrical damage – key features for future biologically inspired robotic systems.
- Energy capture. Our overall goal is the discovery of new energy capture principles that can provide power to remote or mobile intelligent systems, as well as – on larger scales – enable sustainable solutions for the use of waste heat from industrial processes or the use of untapped sources of renewable energy, such as ocean waves.
Soft Robotics
Today’s robotic systems excel at precise and repeatable tasks, and have become widespread in manufacturing and industrial environments. However, as demand grows for versatile and multi-functional robots, and as the physical distance between humans and robots continues to diminish, the rigid links and electric motors that make ... Read More
Functional Polymers
Human and animal bodies employ highly-functional, soft-matter-based biological architectures, such as skin, muscle and tendons, and drastically outperform today’s robots in terms of agility and adaptability. Beyond these individual components of the body, it is particularly impressive to observe, how... Read More
Energy Capture
We are approaching an era of ubiquitous mobile intelligent systems, such as portable electronic devices, wearable or implanted biomedical devices, and autonomous robots – all these devices will depend on or benefit from energy capture systems that can harvest energy from ambient sources and convert it into electricity. ... Read More