News | Physical Intelligence

Physical Intelligence News 18-05-2016 Switch and stick The chemical element gallium could be used as a new reversible adhesive that allows its adhesive effect to be switched on and off with ease Some adhesives may soon have a metallic sheen and be particularly easy to unstick. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart are suggesting gallium as just such a reversible adhesive. By inducing slight changes in temperature, they can control whether a layer of gallium sticks or not. This is based on the fact that gallium transitions from a solid state to a liquid state at around 30 degrees Celsius. A reversible adhesive of this kind could have applications everywhere that temporary adhesion is required, such as industrial pick-and-place processes, transfer printing, temporary wafer bonding, or for moving sensitive biological samples such as tissues and organs. Switchable adhesion could also be suitable for use on the feet of climbing robots. Metin Sitti Zhou Ye Guo Zhan Lum Sukho Song

Physical Intelligence News 13-03-2016 Gentle strength for robots A soft actuator using electrically controllable membranes could pave the way for machines that are no danger to humans In interacting with humans, robots must first and foremost be safe. If a household robot, for example, encounters a human, it should not continue its movements regardless, but rather give way in case of doubt. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart are now presenting a motion system - a so-called elastic actuator - that is compliant and can be integrated in robots thanks to its space-saving design. The actuator works with hyperelastic membranes that surround air-filled chambers. The volume of the chambers can be controlled by means of an electric field at the membrane. To date, elastic actuators that exert a force by stretching air-filled chambers have always required connection to pumps and compressors to work. A soft actuator such as the one developed by the Stuttgart-based team means that such bulky payloads or tethers may now be superfluous. Metin Sitti Lindsey Hines Kirstin Petersen

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2016 Alex Sprowitz joined Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems as an independent group leader in Stuttgart, Germany.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2016 Kirstin Petersen joined Cornell University as an assistant professor in USA.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2016 Wenqi Hu and Hunter Gilbert received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2016 Zeinab Hosseini joined McMaster University as an assistant professor in Canada.

Physical Intelligence Award 28-10-2015 Chantal Göttler: 1st Prize at the "Thesis in Three" Competition in the M.Sc. category.

Physical Intelligence News 04-09-2015 New adhesive mimics gecko biology thetartan.org It’s a typical afternoon at the zoo, and you find yourself looking at the exhibits of reptiles and amphibians in miniature imitations of wild and exotic habitats. At one of the displays you notice a gecko crawling on a window with superhero ease. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 25-06-2015 Bacteria navigate microparticle swarms to target Latest publication in Scientific Reports In the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage, a submarine complete with crew is shrunk in size so that it can navigate through the human body, enabling the crew to perform surgery in the brain. This scenario remains in the realm of science fiction, and transporting a surgical team to a disease site will certainly remain fiction. Nevertheless, tiny submarines that could navigate through the body could be of great benefit: they could deliver drugs precisely to a target location, without causing side effects and stressing the whole organism. Metin Sitti Jiang Zhuang

Physical Intelligence Award 15-06-2015 Wenqi Hu and Wendong Wang received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship.

Physical Intelligence News 01-06-2015 Feature Robotics Medical spectrum.ieee.org Engineers explore ways to take robotics to the limits of size and function. In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, scientists at a U.S. laboratory shrink a submarine called Proteus and its human crew to microscopic size and then inject the vessel into an ailing scientist. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 12-03-2015 Einmal um die Welt für die Robotik Der Ingenieur Metin Sitti ist herumgekommen: Istanbul, Tokio, Berkeley, Pittsburgh – und nun Stuttgart: am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme baut er gerade ein Labor auf und lobt die Chancen für seine Forschung mit kleinen Robotern. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 15-02-2015 Nanoroboter bekämpfen Krebs profil.at Our lab alumnus Assist. Prof. Bahareh Behkam at Virginia Tech in USA received the National Science Foundation CAREER award from the Biomedical Engineering program in 2015. Her award will focus on investigating immune cell-bacteria interactions in the cancer tumor microenvironment. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 04-02-2015 Our lab's work journals.sagepub.com Our lab's work: "Six-Degrees-of-Freedom Remote Actuation of Magnetic Microrobots" has been nominated for the best paper award at the Robotics Science and Systems 2014 conference. Metin Sitti Joshua Giltinan Guo Zhan Lum Zhou Ye

Physical Intelligence Award 02-02-2015 Alumnus award: Our lab alumnus Assist. Prof. Bahareh Behkam at Virginia Tech in USA received the National Science Foundation CAREER award from the Biomedical Engineering program in 2015. Her award will focus on investigating immune cell-bacteria interactions in the cancer tumor microenvironment.

Physical Intelligence Award 15-09-2014 Taewon Seo and Metin Sitti received the IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award due to the paper on tank-like modular climbing robots using elastomeric dry adhesives.

Physical Intelligence Award 06-08-2014 Uyiosa Abosomwan and Metin Sitti received the Best Poster Award in the Adhesion Conference due to the research poster on contact self-cleaning mechanics of gecko-inspired adhesives.

Physical Intelligence News 21-05-2014 Metin Sitti becomes new director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems has appointed Metin Sitti as a new director at the institute’s Stuttgart location. There, Sitti will head the Physical Intelligence Department. One of the main goals of his research will be to obtain a new understanding of physically intelligent systems made of smart and soft materials. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 05-05-2014 Congratulations To our alumni Yigit Menguc, Onur Ozcan, and Rika Wright Carlsen on their new faculty positions. Yigit has accepted a position at Oregon State University, Onur has accepted a position at Bilkent University, and Rika has accepted a position at Robert Morris University. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 07-04-2014 Our lab's work Our lab's work on self-cleaning gecko adhesive is featured as a picture of the week by the science news website Science Friday. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 03-04-2014 Congratulations Congratulations to NanoRobotics Lab alumnus TaeWon Seo and Professor Sitti on winning the 2013 IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 12-03-2014 Newsweek Professor Sitti discusses novel gecko-inspired tape with Newsweek. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 26-02-2014 Metin Sitti became an IEEE Fellow due to contributions to micro- and nano-scale robotic systems.

Physical Intelligence News 10-02-2014 Congratulations Our lab's collaborative work is covered as featured research by Science Daily. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Eric Diller, Zhou Ye, Guo Zhan Lum, Joshua Giltinan and Metin Sitti were selected as the Best Paper Award Finalist in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference due to the paper on novel six degrees-of-freedom actuation method for mobile magnetic microrobots.

Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Matthew Woodward and Metin Sitti: Top 5 Most Read Papers of 2014 of the International Journal of Robotics Research journal for the paper entitled, "MultiMo-Bat: Biologically Inspired Integrated Jumping-Gliding Robot".

Physical Intelligence News 01-02-2014 Fellow Professor Sitti is named as IEEE Fellow. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 28-01-2014 Collaborative work Our lab's collaborative work on "Untethered microrobotic coding of three-dimensional material composition" with Harvard Medical School (Prof. Utkan Demirci) is published in Nature Communications. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 15-01-2014 Good luck Our lab's recent graduate Dr. Eric Diller will be an assistant professor at the University of Toronto (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department) from January 2014. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 02-11-2013 National Science Foundation Our lab alumnus Prof. Seok Kim at UIUC will receive the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his research and educational activities on microassembly using transfer printing. Metin Sitti