Event
MRC Seminar: Soft Robotic Design to Enable Adaptable Interactions
Friday, April 4, 2025
2:00 p.m.
JMP 2116
Soft Robotic Design to Enable Adaptable Interactions
Dr. Laura Blumenschein
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University
Abstract
Soft robotics and material compliance have in recent years given promise to adaptable and robust artificial systems which can better interact with unpredictable environments and situations. However, examples of successful soft robot designs often remain highly specialized to a situation and difficult to generalize on. To build tools that allow for adaptability in the face of uncertainty, we must better understand the interplay between the material compliance, morphology, resulting behavior, and any human agents involved. In this presentation, I will talk about three projects in my research group that examine these questions. In the first, I will discuss a class of soft robot that moves through growth and show how geometric modeling can allow the existing morphology and behavior of these robots to be used for a new purpose, as a tool for localization and mapping in unknown environments. Then, I will discuss how geometric parameterization of soft actuator morphology can allow improved control of the actuator stiffness, force, and deformation. Finally, I will shift focus and highlight how we are attempting to integrate human actors into control and teaching of our systems through haptic communication of uncertainty.
Biography
