Workshop RoboSoft 2018

FULL-DAY WORKSHOP

Venue: Grand Hotel Palazzo, Viale Italia, Livorno, Italy
24 April 2018

Barbara Mazzolai

Director

Center of Micro-BioRobotics (CMBR)

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)

Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34

56025 Pontedera (Pisa), Italy

Robert Shepherd

Professor

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

The Organic Robotics Lab (ORL)

Cornell University

553 Upson Hall, Ithaca, NY

ABSTRACT

The study and the extraction of biological key principles, and their translation in design guidelines for a new generation of robots and technological solutions have been widely adopted in the biomimetics and bionics fields.

Biologically inspired approaches have traditionally been widely adopted in robotics, as well. Robots that implement solutions inspired by nature show abilities that permit adaptive, flexible interactions with unpredictable environments. Consequently, in the goal to mimic living beings, the different components of an artificial system have to be designed from models of the reference biological systems, in an integrated way, making explicit the general design principles underlying the embodiment. The next generation of robots will be “soft”, because this better allows the interaction with the environment, mediated by the body, as in natural systems. Advances in “soft technology” will lead to a quantum leap in intelligent robotics. 

With this workshop, we wish to contribute to the discussion on the development of bioinspired soft robots, not just as robotic systems implementing solutions inspired by nature, but as platforms for biological studies: building a bioinspired robot allows thoroughly understanding the biomechanics, control, perception, and behavior of the reference living system. Mimicking animals, or plants and even microorganisms, requires deep investigation of new materials, bio-mechanisms, sensors, actuators, energy solutions, and control schemes and can lead to breakthrough advances in robotics technologies.

DESCRIPTION

This workshop aims at gathering robotics, biology, biophysics, and biomechanics researchers among the key actors of bioinspired soft robotics worldwide, with the objectives of:

-    stimulating a fruitful and attractive discussion on this emerging scientific area, not only restricted to the robotics community, but expanded to include interaction with the biology, materials science, biophysics communities;

-    providing an authoritative overview of recent advancements in studying features (e.g., materials, behaviors, mechanisms, etc.) of selected living systems belonging to Animalia, Plantae, Bacteria Kingdoms and their related counterparts in soft robotics;

-    creating an occasion in which scientists and roboticists can offer different perspectives and viewpoints in developing a new class of soft robots, which exhibit different performance compared with today's robots, in terms of materials, fabrication technologies, machine and natural intelligence, sensors and actuators;

-    discussing the role of dimensional scale, interaction with environment, morphology, materials hierarchical organization, and other features relevant to define new emerging abilities of soft robots;

-    outlining the current opportunities and challenges of bioinspired robotics.

PLAN TO ENCOURAGE INTERACTION AMONG PARTICIPANTS

The workshop will include a panel discussion open to all the attendees. The workshop speakers and additional experts will animate the discussion, by briefly presenting key issues that deserve further analysis and interdisciplinary debate.

The proposed workshop is intended for the robotics researchers and the scientists who share this vision of bioinspired soft robotics, including the young students and researchers who are encouraged to enter this emerging and challenging field of research.

The novelty of the area and the multidisciplinary approach will stimulate creativity and interactions among participants, with the potentiality of a strong impact for different topics in engineering, ICT solutions, and basic science.

INVITED SPEAKERS

  PROGRAM

FROM LIVING BEINGS TO ARTEFACTS: SOFT ROBOTS, MATERIALS, ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR, MOVEMENT, AND CONTROL IN ANIMALIA, PLANTAE, AND BACTERIA