Research

Artificial Muscles

The performance of artificial muscles depends on their design, manufacturing and implementation. Our laboratory focuses on pneumatic artificial muscles and smart material-based artificial muscles to build stronger, faster and more versatile artificial muscles. Some of the sub-topics that we are investigating are the simultaneous use of positive and negative pressures for actuation, fluidic actuation strategies for improved performance, and the mixed use of smart material and pneumatic actuation.

Soft Robotic Technology

Although actuators are an integral part of any soft robotic device, they can also integrate other components that can sense and modulate the behavior of the device. One of our recent research focus is on the development of novel stretchable sensing technology touching on aspects as multi-input sensing and ultra-stretchable sensors. Another focus is on the development of variable property structures including variable stiffness, variable elasticity and mechanical locking mechanisms.

Soft Robotic Applications

The goal of development artificial muscles and soft robotic technology is to implement them into other various applications. One of the important goal for our laboratory is to develop a full-scale soft robotic arm that is strong, controllable and has a large range of motion despite being inherently safe for use around humans. We also aim to develop soft robotic grippers, wearable robots, and soft medical robots that can harness the advantages of soft robotic technologies.

Ongoing projects

1) 소프트 로보틱스 기술 기반 텐시그리티 사족보행 로봇 개발, 한국연구재단, 개인과제

2) 라이프 스케일 로봇을 위한 신개념 소프트 공압 코봇 연구실, 한국연구재단, 성균관대학교 집단과제

3) 로봇을 활용한 간선화물 물류 운송 차량 하차 작업 시스템 개발, 한국산업기술평가관리원, TopTech, CJ & 성균관대학교 집단과제

4) 간병근로자의 허리 및 상지 복합관절 근력보조를 위한 옷감형 직조 유연구동기를 적용한 소프트 웨어러블 로봇 개발, 한국산업기술평가관리원, 한국기계연구원, 성균관대학교, 아주대학교 & 한국건설생활환경 집단연구