Research Seminars @ Illinois

Abstract:
Robots are rapidly entering everyday life, yet most are designed with little consideration for how they are made or what happens to them after use, resulting in significant environmental costs. Addressing this challenge requires rethinking robot design through a full life cycle perspective, from material sourcing to end of life. This talk introduces robot design with repurposed bio waste to reduce the environmental footprint of robotic materials across the robot life cycle. By integrating crustacean exoskeletons with synthetic components, biohybrid bending actuators are created and performed as functional components within robotic systems. Using a 3 g langoustine abdominal exoskeleton, three robotic applications are demonstrated: a manipulator handling 500 g objects, high speed bending actuator at 8 Hz, and a swimming robot moving at 11 cm/s.

 
Speaker Bio:
Sareum is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the CREATE Lab at EPFL. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on developing design methodologies for sustainable robotics by integrating life cycle thinking spanning material sourcing, fabrication, operation, and end of life stretegy into robotic systems. She is a recipient of the SNSF BRIDGE and SPARK grants.