Leveraging Environmental Interactions for Robot Design and Control

Cynthia Sung, University of Pennsylvania

2:00-3:00 Seminar
3:00-3:45 Refreshments

Gates 403 Fujitsu Conference Room

Abstract: 
Soft robots introduce new opportunities for design and control approaches that take advantage of a robot's internal mechanics to perform a task. When these robots interact with a soft environment, the mechanics of these interactions can further be leveraged to give the robot more robustness, agility, and efficiency with simpler control. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work in modeling and controlling soft networks and how the ability to manipulate the compliance distribution of robot can produce desired deformations at lower actuation cost. I will also discuss our forays into extending these ideas to multi-robot collectives, where coordination between robots can produce higher speed, agility, or efficiency than a single unit, depending on the physical arrangement. I will conclude with potential implications in how we think about robot co-design.

Bio: 

Cynthia Sung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) and a member of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) lab at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2016 and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University in 2011. Her research interests are computational methods for robot co-design, with a particular focus on origami-inspired and compliant robots. She is the recipient of a 2024 ARO Early Career Award, 2023 ONR Young Investigator award, and a 2019 NSF CAREER award. 

Please visit https://stanfordasl.github.io/robotics_seminar/ for this quarter’s lineup of speakers.

Covid-19 related instructions: We recommend wearing a well-fitted, high-quality face covering inside the classroom.