Seoul National Univ. DMSE
Notice

Seminar & Colloquium

Seminar & Colloquium
[세미나: 2월 23일(목), 오후 5시] Dr. Barbara Mazzolai, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia(IIT)

[세미나: 2월 23일(목), 오후 5시] Dr. Barbara Mazzolai, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia(IIT)

 

Title

Bioinspired Soft Robotics for Sustainability

 

Speaker

Dr. Barbara Mazzolai, Associate Director for Robotics & Director of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genoa

 

Biography

Barbara Mazzolai is Associate Director for Robotics and Director of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genoa. From February 2011 to March 2021, she was the Director of the IIT Center for Micro-BioRobotics (CMBR). She graduated in Biology (with Honours) at the University of Pisa, Italy, and received her Ph.D. in Microsystems Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She was Deputy Director for the Supervision and Organization of the IIT Centers Network from July 2012 to 2017. In 2017, she was Visiting Faculty at Aerial Robotics Lab, Department of Aeronautics, of Imperial College of London. She is member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Tübingen and Stuttgart, Germany); member of the SAB of the Max Planck Queensland Centre (MPQC) for the Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices; and member of the Advisory Committee of the Cluster on Living Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems - livMatS (Freiburg, Germany). Her research activity is in the field of bioinspired soft robotics, combining biology and engineering for both advancing technological innovation and scientific knowledge. In this field, she has been the Coordinator of several EU-funded projects, such as PLANTOID, GrowBot and I-SEED. In May 2021, she has started the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant “I-Wood”, Forest Intelligence: robotic networks inspired by the Wood Wide Web. She has received various awards for her work, including the Marisa Bellisario Award and the Medal of the Italian Senate. She is author and co-author of more than 260 papers appeared in international journals, books, and conference proceedings. In 2019, she published her book “La Natura Geniale” and in 2021 “Il futuro raccontato dalle piante” (ed. Longanesi).

 

| Date | Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

| Time | 17:00 ~

| Venue | 온라인 줌(https://snu-ac-kr.zoom.us/j/95257002839?pwd=SGp5WVNFM0FGL3RjZHRvRzh0TnBqQT09)

            회의 ID: 952 5700 2839

            암호: 1010

 

[Abstract]

The advancement of technology has a profound and far-reaching impact on society, currently penetrating all areas of life. This advance, however, often negatively affects our ecosystems, with growing demands on energy, contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental pollution. Mitigating these adverse effects is among the grand challenges of our times and provides a strong motivation to push the research frontier on materials and robotics. A new wave of eco-friendly robots is envisioned by merging bioinspired soft robotics, material science, nanocomposite technologies, and environmental science. 

 

Taking inspiration from natural systems can provide new insights for designing the next generation robots and rethinking robot bodies, control, and interactions with humans/world over their entire life (i.e., a robotics life cycle). These “green robots” will operate in unstructured environments for environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, reforestation, biodiversity protection, and remediation.

 

With this vision in mind, this talk will present some of our results on plant- and soft animal-inspired robots with high morphological adaptability, distributed sensory systems, as well as energy-saving mechanisms, which are able to operate in natural habitats while minimizing waste and reducing their environmental footprint.

 

| Host | 강승균 교수(02-880-5756)