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MEAM Seminar: “Rapidly Understanding Novel Object Dynamics for Robotic Manipulation”

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

The field of robotic manipulation is attempting to expand from structured warehouse and lab environments to in-the-wild applications in human-centric settings. When deployed in novel settings, a robot may see and need to interact with a new object for the first time. Model-based control approaches rely on a priori dynamics models, an assumption that does […]

MEAM Seminar: “Macroscopic Ensemble Methods for Robot Team Data Collection in Dynamic Environments”

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

Data is necessary to improve our understanding of dynamic environments, like the ocean. With limited sensing resources, the challenge lies in identifying and acquiring sensor measurements over large spatial and temporal scales. One solution is to use a team of robots equipped with sensors to collect data. However, robot teams still require methods that effectively […]

MEAM Seminar: “Fingertip Friction, Materials, and Tactile Perception”

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

Sliding touch is one of the key inputs for the perception of materials in our environment. We are interested in the contribution of fingertip friction to the process of tactile exploration and perception. Psychophysical studies address correlations between subjective judgements of perception and measured physical parameters of interactions, in our case of friction on materials […]

MEAM Seminar: “Metallivore Robots Powered by Aluminum-air Batteries”

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

Mobile robots have shown significant advancements in agility, intelligence, and efficiency over the past few decades. However, their endurance and overall performance remain limited by the onboard power supplies. Current power sources typically restrict mobile robots to areas close to the electrical grid and necessitate heavier batteries for extended range. Energy refueling could be significantly […]

MEAM Seminar: “Examples of Elasto-Capillary Mediated Interactions on Thin Elastic Film”

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

I plan to tell two short stories. The first story is about a new drop fluidics that uses a deformable and stretchable elastomeric film as the platform. Such a soft film decorated with magnetic particles can be deformed locally with an external magnetic field. When these deformations are coupled with capillary force, small liquid drops […]

MEAM Seminar: “Tribosintering of Metal Oxide Nanocrystal Antiwear Additives: Growth, Wear, and Modeling”

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

Machinery relies on lubrication to regulate the friction and wear at contacting interfaces. As new lubricants become less viscous to comply with environmental and cost-saving standards, the risk of surface-initiated machine failure grows. We show that metal oxide additives in low-viscosity lubricants will form protective coatings, or tribofilms, in situ at contacting interfaces. Compared to […]

MEAM Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Multi-Robot Coordination and Cooperation via Graph-Based Computation”

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

Multi-robot coordination and cooperation are critical behaviors that improve team performance and enable new tasks in application areas like autonomous construction, agriculture, and extended operation in large unknown regions. This dissertation examines these behaviors in the context of the multi-robot resource allocation problem, where robots must be allocated to regions of demand. In particular, we […]

MEAM MSE Thesis Defense: “Algorithmic Design of an Origami Squirrel-Inspired Paw for Quadrupedal Locomotion in Bar-like Terrains”

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

The Dynamic Origami Quadruped (DOQ), an origami quadrupedal robot, has been primarily utilized for hopping and walking on flat ground. However, adapting it walking on bar-like terrains presents significant challenges. Inspired by the Squirrel-inspired Rapid Tenodesis (SQRT) foot which is capable of passively grasping onto curved surfaces during perching, this thesis explores the integration of […]

MEAM Seminar: “Bio-inspired Architected Materials/Structures with Enhanced Failure Characteristics”

Heilmeier Hall (Room 100), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Structural failure is a critically important design consideration in many engineering applications. Nature provides a number of interesting examples of lightweight structural features that exhibit outstanding failure characteristics. Recent progress in additive manufacturing has facilitated precise control over geometric features, allowing for the implementation of bio-inspired structural designs on a layer-by-layer basis. In this talk, […]

MEAM/MSE Special Seminar: “Starfish-Inspired Tubefeet for Temporary Underwater Adhesion”

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

Temporary and switchable underwater adhesion plays an important role in robotic underwater locomotion and transportation. The physical features of the suction cups of octopuses have been mimicked, where the vacuum chamber formed by the deformation of these cups enable strong adhesion. However, the works mainly focused on the strength of the underwater adhesion. For the […]