SEMINAR: Physical Intelligence in Soft Materials: Integrating Mechanics and Modeling for Autonomous Systems

While traditional intelligence resides in the brain, physical intelligence leverages structural mechanics and smart materials to encode sensing, actuation, and decision-making directly into an agent’s body. By offloading computational burdens to the body, we can create intelligent materials that are inherently adaptive and autonomous. In this talk, I will present a framework for integrating computational modeling and soft active materials to bridge the gap between fundamental material properties and robotic function, a core objective of Materials Science and Engineering, and Intelligence. Our goal is to harness snapping instabilities coupled with versatile morphologies to drive innovation in robotics, biomedical engineering, and sustainability. I will first demonstrate how kirigami-inspired structural designs can program the morphology of meta-materials, enabling dynamically conformable wearable devices and noninvasive yet robust robotic manipulation. I will then discuss how coupling these structural bifurcations with stimuli-responsive materials allows for embodied intelligence. This is exemplified by our recent developments in autonomous insect-scale aerial actuators, self-sensing artificial muscles, and self-deployed seedpods for forest regeneration and sustainability. Collectively, these advancements provide a roadmap for the next generation of autonomous material systems that sense, think, and act through their very fabric.