The Mechanics for Intelligent Structures (MIS) group explores how intelligence can emerge from understanding and harnessing the fundamentals of mechanics. Our research combines mechanical modeling, computational simulation, and optimization to design and control adaptive and intelligent structures. Mechanics and simulation serve as enabling tools, providing the physical understanding and quantitative predictability required to engineer complex and active structures.

We develop and advance methods in computational mechanics to model the complex and nonlinear deformation behavior of soft and active materials. These high-fidelity simulations allow us to identify and understand the mechanical principles underlying both biological and engineering structures. Based on this knowledge, we establish computational design frameworks that make mechanics a foundation for the systematic and inverse design of intelligent structures and soft robots.

Computational Design for Soft Robots. We advance cutting-edge methods in computational mechanics to provide sophisticated analysis and optimization tools tailored to the inverse design of soft robots. One focus is the development of numerical techniques to design microstructures for programmable shape changes, forming the basis of a computational design concept that can drive innovation in soft robotics.

Leveraging Insights from Reverse Biomimetics. Advanced computational methods allow us to gain a deeper understanding of biological role models, paving the way toward bio-inspired design processes for soft robots. By translating fundamental biological principles into mechanical and computational design strategies, we make biological motion mechanisms directly applicable to engineering systems.

Closing the Loop Between Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing. Our computational design framework also aims to integrate manufacturing aspects directly into the design process. By feeding experimental results of manufactured prototypes back into simulation and optimization, we reduce the need for costly trial-and-error prototyping while improving model fidelity and predictability.

Through this integration of mechanics, modeling, and experimentation, we establish a pathway from physical understanding to real-world application. Our research spans a wide range of systems – from plant-inspired motion mechanisms and bio-inspired soft robots to adaptive materials with programmable microstructures and variable stiffness. By treating mechanics and simulation as enablers of intelligent design, our group aims to bridge fundamental mechanics, materials science, and robotics. This unified perspective provides the basis for a new generation of intelligent, adaptive structures that merge geometry, material, and control into one coherent mechanical system.