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MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “The Design of a Community-Informed Socially Interactive Humanoid Robot and End-effectors for Novel Edge-Rolling”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This dissertation discusses my work in building an HRI platform called Quori and my once separate now integrated work on a manipulation method that can enable robots like Quori, or any more capable robot, to move large circular cylindrical objects. Quori is a novel, affordable, socially interactive humanoid robot platform for facilitating noncontact human-robot interaction […]

MEAM Seminar: “Motion Planning for a Variable Topology Truss Robot”

Towne 313 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Variable Topology Trusses (VTTs) are a new type of modular, self-reconfigurable robot (MSRR). Like other self-reconfigurable robot systems, a VTT can change its shape to adapt to a variety of tasks, offering a wider range of capabilities than a single robot configuration. While most MSRRs consist of robot modules that are connected in a chain […]

MEAM Seminar: “Toward Agile Legged Locomotion in a Novel Quadrupedal Robot with an Axially Twisting Spine”

Towne 313 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

With the advent of more capable and cheaper legged robots, robotic legged locomotion is becoming an increasingly attractive solution for locomotion and embodiment. Legs offer expanded capability over wheeled robots, albeit at the cost of complexity and efficiency. For example, walking robots explore rubble-filled caves, inspect industrial sites, move around human spaces (e.g., stairs), and […]

MEAM Seminar: “High-performance Electroadhesives for Materials and Robots with Programmable Stiffness”

Towne 313 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Materials with electroprogrammable stiffness and adhesion can enhance the performance of robotic systems but achieving large changes in stiffness and adhesive forces in real time is an ongoing challenge. Electroadhesive clutches can rapidly adhere high stiffness elements, although their low force capacities, high activation voltages, and inability to separate and turn off stiffness changes reliably […]

MEAM Seminar: “Harnessing Physical Intelligence for High-Performance Soft Robots”

Towne 227 (MEAM Conference Room) 220 S. 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Different from neuron-based computational intelligence through the brain, physical intelligence leverages structural designs and smart materials to physically encode sensing, actuation, control, adaption, and decision-making into the body of an agent. The stimuli-responsive body materials can enable autonomous sensory, actuation, powering, and other physical intelligence functions. The structural designs of soft body can simplify the […]

A Celebration of the Life of Dr. Max Mintz

Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The CIS Department and GRASP Lab invite you to please join us on Thursday, November 17th, at 3:30pm as we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Max Mintz, Professor of Computer and Information Science. Max joined Penn as an assistant professor of Systems Engineering (now part of ESE) in 1974. He changed his primary […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “An Aquatic Underactuated Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robotic System for Information-Limited Navigation in Gyre-Like Flows”

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Aquatic modular self-reconfigurable robotic systems (MSRRs) have incredible potential for bringing practical, flexible, and adaptable robotic tools to challenging environments. They could build mobile ocean platforms or bridges for larger vehicles, act as ocean-going manipulators to perform repairs on infrastructure, or function as oceanographic research platforms, using reconfiguration to achieve precise spatial resolution when sensing […]

ASSET Seminar: , Dinesh Jayaraman (University of Pennsylvania)

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

ABSTRACT: An important goal of the field sensorimotor robot learning is to do away with cumbersome expertise-intensive task specification, so that general-purpose robots of the future might learn large numbers of new skills. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work on algorithms that exploit goals as a versatile and accessible task specification interface. Goals might […]

MEAM Seminar: “Addressing Sensitivity-Induced Challenges in Modeling Rigid-Body Systems with Frictional Impacts”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Imperfect but useful physical models play a crucial role in planning and controlling robot locomotion and manipulation. However, as the field shifts toward complex real-world applications, model accuracy requirements are increasing while calibration data is becoming scarcer. Consequently, model inaccuracy or the sim2real gap often hinders the development of performant robotics algorithms. Frictional contact, the […]

MEAM Seminar: “Progress on Templates for Spined and Tailed Legged Robots”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

By mirroring the success of biological systems, legged robots have the potential to be successful in almost every terrestrial environment. While legged machines have made significant advancements in the past 20 years, there still exists a considerable gap between what they can achieve and the abilities of animals. In this talk I’ll discuss some of […]