Material Matters: Sensors and Actuators for Contact-Rich Robotics

Prof. Lillian Chin (University of Texas at Austin)

Location: 550-126 (conference room near the design/d.school atrium)

(Hosted by Allison Okamura)

Abstract

As robots are deployed outside of the lab and the factory, their bodies will need to adapt to real-world human environments. Our current suite of robot materials, actuators and sensors are not adequate for safe human contact, let alone providing useful assistance. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of our research at MERGe Lab, which uses a materials and geometry-based approach to design a robot’s functionality. This approach has successfully created many unique and effective robot designs, ranging from metamaterial actuators to embedded tactile sensing to 3D printable soft-rigid hybrid robots. This body-first approach leads to significant improvements in performance, including modular robots that can exert a force 76x their weight, soft fingers that are 20x more power efficient, and tactile sensors that can sense slip events in real-time (within 100 ms). We conclude with a preview of how this technology can be adapted towards clinical applications, such as wearable force sensors for exoskeletons and metamaterials for continuum robots.

Bio: 

Lillian Chin is an Assistant Professor and a Texas Instruments / Jack Kilby Fellow at UT Austin in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She received her PhD from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and worked as a Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Her work has been recognized with awards such as the Hertz Fellowship and RSS Pioneers.