Research Overview

The Robotic Matter Lab designs material systems – or robotic materials – that provide robots unprecedented capabilities via novel material forms and functions.

RL Truby, Designing Soft Robots as Robotic Materials. Accounts of Materials Research, 2021.

Our research programs focus on three core themes in pursuit of this mission:

Design: Translating soft material functionalities into novel robotic capabilities, with a focus on new actuation paradigms for the design of sensorized artificial muscles

Fabrication: Enabling new material properties and computationally-guided fabrication of robotic matter through new methods of digitally patterning and assembling soft materials

Control: Designing and controlling novel, autonomous soft matter devices via machine learning and new soft sensing strategies

The fundamental materials and robotics advances that our research efforts will enable are essential for evolving soft robots beyond inspirational lab demos towards systems that have similar – if not greater – technological impact as their rigid counterparts.

Research Areas

Materials for new robot capabilities

We design materials for new robotic actuation, perception, power, and control capabilities. Our research efforts include work in the design of architected materials for electrically-driven soft actuators, liquid crystal elastomer artificial muscles, and 4D printed shape-changing materials. We have also developed new types of sensing strategies for soft robots and robotic materials, including ionogel-based strategies for bioinspired proprioception and tactile feedback.

We are actively synthesizing new polymeric composites for use in robotic materials.

Representative works:

1. Truby, R. L.,* L. Chin,* D. Rus, “A Recipe for Electrically-Driven Soft Robots via 3D Printed Handed Shearing Auxetics.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2021. 6: 795-802.

2. Boley, J. W.,* van Rees, W. M.,* C. Lissandrello, M. N. Horenstein, R. L. Truby, A. Kotikian, J. A. Lewis,** L. Mahadevan,** “Shape-shifting lattices via multi-material 4D printing.” PNAS, 2019. 116: 20856-20862.

3. Truby, R. L., M. Wehner, A. K. Grosskopf, D. M. Vogt, S. G. M. Uzel, R J. Wood, J. A. Lewis, “Soft Somatosensitive Actuators via Embedded 3D Printing.” Advanced Materials, 2018. 30: 1706383.

4. Kotikian, A., R. L. Truby, J. W. Boley, T. J. White, J. A. Lewis, “3D Printed Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators with Spatially Programed Nematic Order.” Advanced Materials, 2018. 30: 1706164.

5. Wehner, M.*, R. L. Truby,* D. J. Fitzgerald, B. Mosadegh, G. M. Whitesides, J. A. Lewis**, R. J. Wood,** “An integrated design and fabrication strategy for entirely soft, autonomous robots.” Nature, 2016. 536: 451-455. 

Multi-material 3D printing of soft, multifunctional matter

New fabrication methods that enable the rapid, digital design of soft material composites with tailored mechanical, electrical, and physicochemical properties are required for designing the next generation of soft robots and robotic materials. We specialize in ink-based printing methods like direct-ink writing (DIW) and embedded 3D printing (EMB3DP) for designing soft, multifunctional materials, as they enable a far broader set of materials to be patterned than other printing methods. We use these methods to pattern elastomeric, conductive, catalytic, hydrogel-based, stimuli-responsive, and structural materials.

Building off our experience in DIW and EMB3D printing, we are actively developing new hybrid printing strategies to rapidly pattern hierarchically structured soft matter composites.

Representative works:

1. Truby, R. L., Wehner, A. K. Grosskopf, D. M. Vogt, S. G. M. Uzel, R. J. Wood, J. A. Lewis, “Soft Somatosensitive Actuators via Embedded 3D Printing.” Advanced Materials, 2018. 30: 1706383.

2. Skylar-Scott*, M. A., S. G. M. Uzel*, L. Nam, J. H. Ahrens, R. L. Truby, S. Damaraju, J. A. Lewis, “Biomanufacturing of organ-specific tissues with high cellular density and embedded vascular channels.” Science Advances, 2019. 5: eaaw2459.

3. Grosskopf, A. K., R. L. Truby, H. Kim, A. Perazzo, J. A. Lewis,** H. A. Stone,** “Viscoplastic Matrix Materials for Embedded 3D Printing.” ACS Appl. Mater. Interf., 2018. 10: 23353: 23361.

4. Truby, R. L.*, J. A. Lewis,* “Printing Soft Matter in Three Dimensions.” Nature, 2016. 540: 371-378.

5. Kolesky, D. B., R. L. Truby, A. S. Gladman, T. A. Busbee, K. A. Homan, J. A. Lewis, “3D Bioprinting of Vascularized Heterogeneous Cell-Laden Tissue Constructs.” Advanced Materials, 2014. 26: 3124-3103.

Soft Robot Perception and Control

Developing autonomous soft, bioinspired robots remains a long-standing goal. The compliant, deformable nature of soft continuum robots severely complicates their dynamic control via model-based approaches. Moreover, providing soft robots with appropriate proprioceptive and tactile sensing capabilities has remained a challenge due to the difficulties of creating soft robots with integrated soft material sensors. Thus, the challenge of soft robotic control is both a materials and robotics one. We have developed new materials and algorithms for sensorizing soft robotic actuators and controlling these actuators in soft manipulation.

In conjunction with our efforts in materials design and development of new manufacturing methods, we are actively working on new soft robotic sensorization strategies and machine learning-based approaches to develop truly autonomous soft robots.

Representative works:

1. Della Santina, C.*, R. L. Truby,* D. Rus, “Data-Driven Disturbance Observers for Estimating External Forces on Soft Robots.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2020. 5: 5717-5724.

2. Truby, R. L.,* C. Della Santina,* D. Rus, “Distributed Proprioception of 3D Configuration in Soft, Sensorized Robots via Deep Learning.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2021. 5: 3299-3306.

3. Truby, R. L., R. K. Katzschmann, J. A. Lewis, D. Rus, “Soft Robotic Fingers with Embedded Ionogel Sensors and Discrete Actuation Modes for Somatosensitive Manipulation.” Proc. 2019 IEEE Intl. Conf. Soft Robotics, 2019. 322-329.

Video Overviews of Selected Work