Research Focus

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Our group is interested in designing and building soft, intelligent robot systems with yet-to-be conceived functionalities. The backbone of our research is highly multidisciplinary at the intersection between Soft Architected Materials, Soft Electronics, Soft Robotics, and Biomedical Engineering. The goal of our group spans a broad range of future robot applications from meter-scale marine energy harvesting, human-scale skin computer and actuation system down to microscale biomedical robots for cutting-edge cancer therapeutics.​
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Key research highlights include the development of:

• Architected Skin: 
  A strain-coupled soft platform for tailorable micro-textures and electronics - Advanced Materials (2018)
• Skin Computer:
  A system-level electronic epidermis that innervates and controls soft robots wirelessly - Science Robotics (2018)
• Stretchable Origami:
  A soft robot design framework inspired by pelican eel's giant shape morphing - Science Robotics (2019)
• Swimming Carpet:
  A paradigm shift in the underwater locomotion principle for 2D underwater robots - Science Robotics (2021)
• Mechanical Computer: 
  Architected, system-level mechanical metamaterials for autonomous soft machines - Nature Communications (2024)
• Ingestible Surgeon:
  Microrobotic electro-chemodynamic therapeutics for gastrointestinal cancers - TBD, in preparation