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COMP_SCI 396, 496: Embodied Systems


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Prerequisites

N/A

Description

How can we design computing systems that sense, learn from, and interact with the physical world?

The most profound signals of life and matter are not always visible on the surface. They are embodied within living organisms, material structures, and environments themselves, emerging as chemical, tactile, proprioceptive, force, thermal, and light signals.

This course explores how soft electronics, sensors, circuits, algorithms, and actuators come together to create embodied intelligent systems, where sensing, computation, and physical interaction are tightly coupled.

The course is a hybrid of lectures, class discussions and hands-on laboratories. Every 1–2 weeks, we will explore a new sensing or actuation technology, understand its underlying physical principles, and build /fabricate working prototypes. Students will gain practical experience designing and fabricating sensors, integrating electronic circuits, programming embedded systems, and developing interactive physical devices.

We will explore how to deploy these systems beyond controlled laboratory settings, where power, resource constraints, form factor, latency, and scalability become first-class engineering design principles.

Through hands-on assignments and a final project, students will learn how to turn materials and physical phenomena into functional computing systems, developing the foundations for the next generation of Embodied AI.

  • This course fulfills the Technical Elective area.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites. Both undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds, including design, engineering, and science, are welcome. Prior experience with hands-on fabrication, CAD design, or electronic prototyping will be beneficial, particularly for the final project.
UG who are junior and senior will be preferred over freshman and sophomore. 

Mandatory: Lab safety training

Capacity: 20 students

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Develop an interdisciplinary mindset by integrating concepts from computer science, electrical engineering, materials science, biology, and design.
  2. Understand how intelligence can be embodied in physical systems, exploring how materials, structures, sensing, actuation, and computation work together to produce intelligent behavior.
  3. Design and build embodied computing systems through hands-on experience with soft electronics, sensors, actuators, embedded circuits, and physical rapid prototyping.
  4. Evaluate engineering design trade-offs involving power, form factor, latency, scalability, and resource constraints.
  5. Develop creative problem-solving and research skills through interdisciplinary projects, demonstrations, and technical communication. 

Topics Covered

  • Engineering Design Parameters for Embodied Systems: Power, Form Factor, Latency, and Scalability
  • Embodied Intelligence in Nature
  • Flexible Capacitive and Triboelectric Nanogenerator Touch Sensors
  • Actuation as Sensing: Building a Chemical Nose
  • Artificial Muscles and Soft Actuators
  • Low-power Electrochromic Displays
  • Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Systems
  • Bistable Structures and Mechanical Intelligence
  • Embedded Intelligence and Closed-Loop Sensing and Actuation

Grades

Component

Weight

Class Participation

10%

Individual Writing Assignment

10%

Group Labs / Activities

40%

Final Project (Proposal, Video Presentation, Report, Demo)

40%

Total

100%

REFERENCE TEXTBOOKS: N/A
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: N/A
COURSE COORDINATORS: Prof. Nivedita Arora
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Prof. Nivedita Arora