Miscellaneous

Bio-Inspired Soft Robotics: New Ways of Sensing and Actuation
Yong-Lae Park
Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon, Robotics Institute

September 19, 2014

Abstract
Innovation in sensing and actuation technologies is extremely important for future robots with human-like or human-involved applications, such as wearable robotics, rehabilitation robotics, surgical robotics, humanoids, haptics, tele-robotics where close interactions between human and machines are critical.

This talk will describe the novel design and manufacturing processes for developing smart robotic structures with soft materials, and examples of robotic systems integrated with soft sensors and actuators, focusing on three specific areas: artificial skin sensors, artificial muscle actuators, and soft robots for human assistance and rehabilitation. Advanced manufacturing technologies for building multi-material and multi-functional 3-D soft smart composite microstructures will be also discussed during the talk.

Speaker Biography
Yong-Lae Park is an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute and the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Prior to joining CMU in 2013, Prof. Park completed his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, in 2010, and conducted postdoctoral research in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He is founder of the CMU Soft Robotics and Bionics Laboratory. His current research interests include artificial skins and muscles, soft robots, wearable devices and robots, and smart structures and materials. He is the winner of the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Sensors Journal, in 2013, a NASA Tech Brief Award from the NASA Johnson Space Center, in 2012, and a Technology Development Fellowship for independent postdoctoral research from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, in 2010. His recent paper on soft artificial skin was selected as a cover article of the IEEE Sensors Journal, and his work on soft wearable robots was recently featured in Discovery News and New Scientist.

Click to expand...

Robots made entirely out of soft materials could be real game-changers. They could integrate more easily with human activities ranging from the ordinary to the exceptional.

A group of engineers at Carnegie Mellon University is working to make such soft robots a hard reality.

Click to expand...

Delft University of Technology graduate Rob Scharff has created a soft robotic limb that can shake hands with people.

Click to expand...

Inflatibits is a quick, easy and motivating way for you to get started in Soft Robotics.
Designed by Christopher Kopic
christopherkopic.wordpress.com/portfolio
Bauhaus-University Weimar, 2015

Click to expand...

This artificial skin, inspired by octopuses, responds to changing conditions by altering the light it produces
Full story:
"Super-stretchy robot skin can become brighter when it bends"

by Sandrine Ceurstemont
March 3, 2016

Click to expand...

Researchers developed an artificial skin that can stretch, sense pressure and emit light, demonstrating a level of multi-functionality seen in the skin of cephalopods like octopuses. A soft robot demonstrates these combined capabilities by stretching and emitting light as it moves.

Credit:
Highly stretchable electroluminescent skin for optical signaling and tactile sensing
C. Larson, B. Peele, S. Li, S. Robinson, M. Totaro, L. Beccai, B. Mazzolai, R. Shepherd
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aac5082

Click to expand...

Engineers at MIT have found a way to prevent hydrogels from dehydrating, with a method that binds hydrogels to elastomers such as rubber and silicone.

Click to expand...

Soft Robotic Blocks: Introducing SoBL, a Fast-Build Modularized Design Block

This video presents a new, modularized design concept for soft robots based on a bottom-up approach by assembling units. This concept enables the structures and motions of soft robots to be rapidly prototyped and revised to create new designs that can accomplish different tasks.
The paper about our modularized concept is published in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (Volume: 23, Issue: 3, Sept. 2016).

Click to expand...

This bio-inspired elastic material can morph into various shapes, and could provide a shape-shifting surface for soft robots.

Click to expand...

What has the ability to move and show its colors, is made only of silicone rubber and manufactured at the millimeter scale? A soft robotic peacock spider. Researchers have combined three different manufacturing techniques to create a novel origami-inspired soft material microfabrication process that goes beyond what existing approaches can achieve at this small scale.

Click to expand...