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I am currently a senior Postdoctoral researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). My research is focused on exploiting and developing additive manufacturing technologies for fabrication of soft-bodied and hybrid (soft/rigid) robots. For several years I have worked on the design and implementation of bio-inspired robots by exploiting additive manufacturing, textile, and smart material technologies. Some of my achievements in variable stiffness composites and soft textile-based actuators are used in the implementation of a soft wearable lower-limb exoskeleton in the framework of XoSoft Projects. During working in the European project PLANTOID, I succeeded to invent and develop two different mechanisms as the world first plant inspired growing robots; one based on the eversion movement of a textile sleeve and one by the embodiment of the additive manufacturing technique (a customized 3D printer) inside the robot body. Both of these designs can potentially be used in different applications such as medical and rescue robotics. GROWBOT and SMASH are two recently accepted projects proposals both based on these plant inspired achieved results. GROWBOT aims to advance the growing mechanism for rescue applications and SMASH is a project for addressing needs of high-tech agriculture.

I received my B.Sc. and M.Sc. both in the field of Manufacturing and Production Engineering from Babol Noshirvani University of Technology (2000) and Faculty of Engineering of University of Tehran (2003) and my Ph.D. in Micro Bio-Robotics from Scuola Superiore Sant' Anna (2013), Italy.

Since 2006 to 2010 I worked as a lecturer in the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the University of Tehran and as a research associate in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (RAIL).

In those years I changed the traditional method of General Workshop course. Now in the ECE faculty students make simple robot and mechatronic systems parallel to learning manufacturing methods and working with machine tools. some of my students'es projects presented in the Teaching Experiences page.

My main research in RAIL was focused on design and development of pole climbing robots and mobile robotic systems (e.g. Vacuum Cleaner Robots).

One of my designed and developed robots in RAIL was a very simple self-locking and fall preventing pole climbing robot that we called it; "Human-Inspired Pole Climbing Robot". This robot won the best paper award in the 11th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR 2008).

Research Interests

• Advanced manufacturing of robotic systems
• Bio-Inspired and Soft Robotics
• Additive Manufacturing
• Smart Structures Based on Electrorheological Fluids
• Textile technologies
• Micro Manufacturing Methods and MEMS
• Compliant Mechanisms
• Climbing Robots
• Variable stiffness mechanisms
• Conductive polymers

Contacts

• alisaadeghi [at] gmail.com
• a.sadeghi [at] utwente.nl