Robotic Skins That Turn Inanimate Objects Into Multifunctional Robots
Abstract
Robots generally excel at specific tasks in structured environments, but lack the
versatility and adaptability required to interact with and locomote within the
natural world. To increase versatility in robot design, my research group is
developing robotic skins that can wrap around arbitrary deformable objects to
induce the desired motions and deformations. Robotic skins integrate actuation
and sensing into a single conformable material, and may be applied to, removed
from, and transferred between different objects to create a multitude of
controllable robots with different functions to accommodate the demands of
different environments. We have shown that attaching the same robotic skin to a
deformable object in different ways, or to different objects, leads to unique
motions. Further, we have shown that combining multiple robotic skins enables
complex motions and functions. During this talk, I will demonstrate the versatility
of this soft robot design approach by showing robotic skins in a wide range of applications—including manipulation tasks, locomotion, and wearables—using the same 2D robotic skins reconfigured on the surface of various 3D soft, inanimate objects.
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- IRIM Seminar Series [126]