LCSR Seminar: Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio “From Particles to Parts–Building Multifunctional Robots with Programmable Robotic Skins”

When:
February 12, 2020 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
2020-02-12T12:00:00-05:00
2020-02-12T13:00:00-05:00
Where:
Hackerman B-17
Contact:
LCSR
410-516-6841

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 soft robotic skins that can wrap around arbitrary deformable objects to induce the desired motions and deformations. The robotic skins integrate programmable composites to embed actuation and sensing into planar substrates that may be applied-to, removed-from, and transferred-between different objects to create a multitude of controllable robots with different 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. Further, I will present recent work towards programmable composites derived from novel functional particulates that address the emerging need for variable stiffness properties, variable trajectory motions, and embedded computation within the soft robotic skins.

 

Bio:

Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio is the John J. Lee Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Yale University. She completed her B.S. at the Johns Hopkins University, M.S. at U.C. Berkeley, and Ph.D. at Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, she was an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of Soft Robotics, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and Multifunctional Materials, and is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the NASA Early Career Faculty Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in 2015.

 

 This talk will be recorded. Click Here for all of the recorded seminars for the 2019-2020 academic year.