M.E.L. Oakes Undergraduate Lecture

Prof. Daniel I. Goldman, School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology

"Robophysics: Physics Meets Robotics"

4:00pm, The John A. Wheeler Lecture Hall (RLM 4.102). Coffee and cookies will be served at 3:45pm in RLM 4.102

Abstracts: Robots are moving from the factory floor and into our lives as autonomous cars, package delivery drones, and search-and-rescue devices.

However, compared to living systems, locomotion by such devices is limited in part because principles of interaction with complex environments are largely unknown.

This talk will discuss the physics of moving systems -- “robophysics,” which is the pursuit of the discovery of principles of self-generated motion [Aguilar et al, Rep. Prog. Physics (2016, to appear)].

We use the methods of physics to examine successful and failed locomotion in simple laboratory devices using parameter space exploration, systematic control, and techniques from dynamical systems.

Drawing from examples from my group and our collaborators, I will discuss how studies in robophysics aid engineers in the creation of devices with life-like locomotor abilities on and within complex environments.

These devices have raised new physics questions in low dimensional dynamical systems, geometric mechanics, and soft matter physics, and have been useful in developing models for biological locomotion in complex terrains.

The rapidly decreasing cost of sophisticated robot models and computational power bodes well for scientists and engineers to engage in a discipline that can integrate experiment, theory and computation.