Join the Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB) for the April Speaker Series

Speaker: Carmel Majidi, Clarence H. Adamson Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Date and Time: Friday, April 7 at 12:00 p.m. CT

Location: Tech B211 and Zoom

Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar

? NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.

Abstract: Progress in soft lithography and soft materials integration have led to extraordinary new classes of soft-matter sensors, circuits, and transducers. These material technologies are composed almost entirely out of soft matter - elastomers, gels, and conductive fluids like liquid metal - and represent the building blocks for machines and electronics that are soft, flexible, and stretchable. Because of their intrinsic compliance and elasticity, such devices can be incorporated into soft, biologically-inspired robots or be worn on the body and operate continuously without impairing natural body motion. In this talk, Prof. Majidi will review recent contributions from his research group in creating soft multifunctional materials for wearable electronics and soft robotics using these emerging practices in "soft-matter engineering." In particular, he will focus on soft robots powered using shape memory materials and soft material architectures for highly stretchable digital electronics, wearable energy harvesting, and electrically-responsive actuation. When possible, he will show how the design and operation of these soft-matter technologies can be guided by theoretical modeling methods based on principles of mechanics and discrete differential geometry. In addition to presenting his own research in the field, Prof. Majidi will also briefly review broader efforts and emerging challenges in utilizing soft multifunctional materials for applications in wearable electronics, bioelectronic interfaces, and soft robotics.

Bio: Carmel Majidi is the Clarence H. Adamson Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he leads the Soft Machines Lab. His lab is dedicated to the discovery of novel material architectures that allow machines and electronics to be soft, elastically deformable, and biomechanically compatible. Currently, Prof. Majidi's research is focused on modeling, design, and control of soft robotic systems as well as the development of multifunctional materials that exhibit unique combinations of mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and can function as "artificial" skin, nervous tissue, and muscle. Prof. Majidi has received grants from industry and federal agencies along with early career awards from DARPA, ONR, AFOSR, and NASA to explore challenges in soft-matter engineering and robotics. Prior to arriving at CMU, he had postdoctoral appointments at Harvard and Princeton Universities and received his PhD in Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley.