Mapping the Ocean With Marine Robots
M. Ani Hsieh’s robotics lab investigates how to use ocean currents as a natural energy source for marine robots, which would enable widespread exploration.
Guinness Recognizes Piccolissimo as World’s Smallest Self-Powered Flying Robot
Guinness World Records has officially recognized Piccolissimo as the World’s Smallest Self-Powered Flying Robot. Italian for “tiniest,” Piccolissimo is the brain child of Matt Piccoli, a graduate student in professor Mark Yim’s ModLab.
New GRASP Project Aims to Leverage ‘Embodied Intelligence’ via a Robotic Squirrel
It takes about a year before human infants master their own motor skills well enough to walk. Legged robots don’t have it so easy. Only the most advanced can walk with a smooth, natural gait, and even those can be stymied by a small pile of rubble or sand. A team of researchers, led from […]
Paris Perdikaris Predicts Complex Outcomes of Physical Systems
Since the days of Isaac Newton, scientists have been monitoring and predicting the movements of falling apples, heavenly bodies, ocean currents and just about anything that can go from point A to point B. These models have grown increasingly complex, but so have the physical phenomena they depict. Now the mechanisms behind cutting-edge technology, in […]
Penn Engineering Featured at Philly’s First Mini Maker Faire
Penn Engineering’s GRASP Lab robots, aerial vehicles and art all came together on Sunday, June 24, as one of the main attractions at the first Philadelphia Mini Maker Faire.
Quartz: GRASP Lab Spin-Off Exyn Takes Flight Underground
Exyn Technologies, a spin-off of Penn Engineering’s GRASP lab, makes software that can turn your average-joe drone into a fully autonomous flying robot, sensing, exploring, and navigating its environment without the aid of a human pilot or GPS navigation. Quartz’s Erik Olsen covered Exyn’s drone system in a story and video, showing drones exploring old […]
Ting Yue Receives ECOS Best Paper Award
Ting Yue, a 2017 doctoral graduate in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, is the recipient of a Best Paper Award (Second Place) from the International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems (ECOS). The paper, “Thermodynamic Analysis of Hybrid Power Cycles using Multiple Heat Sources of Different Temperatures,” was co-authored […]
ModLab’s ‘SMORES’ Modify Their Environment to Get the Job Done
Given the exact parameters of the task at hand, a robot can assemble a car door or pack a box faster and more efficiently than any human, but such purpose-built machines aren’t good for much else. With that in mind, the history of robotics research is marked by devising ways of giving machines more and […]
Penn Engineers Update a User-friendly Device for Point-of-Care Diagnostics
In 2016, Penn Engineers published a paper introducing a hand-held device for detecting Zika virus. Using a Thermos, a microfluidics chip and a smartphone, the “smart-connected cup” can screen saliva, urine, or blood samples for signature genetic material of the Zika virus. The device streamlines and condenses processes that health providers usually carry out in […]
Game Changer: A Penn Engineer Joins The Philadelphia Phillies
When Alex Nakahara (MEAM’10) was asked recently if he is ever able to mention his job title without someone excitedly responding with “Moneyball!” he smiled broadly and answered, “Pretty much no.” Nakahara was quick to add, however, that he often uses the analogy to better explain what he does for a living. Nakahara is a […]