MechE Colloquium: Exploiting mechanofluidic instabilities to enable soft autonomous machines
Event details
| Date | 29.04.2025 |
| Hour | 12:00 › 13:00 |
| Speaker | Prof. Bas Overvelde, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, and Soft Robotic Matter, AMOLF |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract: During the past decade, using soft materials to build machines and robots has gained significant traction in the scientific domain. These soft devices target applications where human interaction, unstructured environments, and robust behavior are key. Despite these exciting developments, most of the current electronic control, intelligence, and power systems of soft robots are too bulky for embedded use and therefore limit their applicability. To enable bio-inspired forms of autonomy, we are in the process of developing soft machines embedded with smart fluidic (pneumatic) circuits that harness nonlinear mechanical and dynamical behavior to replace electronics and software. When such machines are designed properly, autonomy can emerge as a result of them interacting and responding to their environment. One of our recent studies involves an elastic valve with a slit that exhibits mechanical hysteretic behavior. We have demonstrated the ability to utilize this valve to convert a continuous flow into a pulsatile flow, a crucial requirement for enabling self-oscillating and programmable locomotion. We are currently in the process of exploiting such mechanofluidic instabilities to activate a soft robotic heart that we are developing within the Holland Hybrid Heart consortium. Similarly, alternative fluidic circuits feature nonlinear mechanical components such as kinking tubes, which exhibit instabilities that can be harnessed to enhance actuation frequencies and movement speed. From a behavioral point of view, these soft components change their behavior considerably in response to interactions with their environment, resulting in useful self-sensing behavior that can be utilized for dynamic synchronization, reprogrammable gaits, and potentially for autonomy.
Biography: In 2016, Johannes T.B. (Bas) Overvelde became a tenure-track Group Leader @AMOLF, an academic institute for the physics of functional and complex matter in Amsterdam, where he started the Soft Robotic Matter Group. Overvelde received tenure in 2021. In 2020, Overvelde was appointed Associate Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). As part of the Dynamics and Control Department, Overvelde works part-time at the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems.
Between 2004 and 2012, Overvelde studied applied physics and mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, where he received both his BSc and MSc degrees in mechanical engineering cum laude. In April 2016, Overvelde finished his PhD in applied mathematics at Harvard University under the direction of professor Katia Bertoldi at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Overvelde’s PhD research focussed on harnessing compliance and instabilities in engineered structural materials and devices to achieve function.
The Soft Robotic Matter Group (www.overvelde.com) focuses on research at the crossroads of soft robotics and mechanical metamaterials. Combining expeirmental and computational tools, the group explores how shape, nonlinearities and feedback can be harnessed to embody “intelligent” behavior in mechanical systems. In particular, the group works on the design, fabrication and fundamental understanding of robotic materials that are capable of autonomously adapting to – and even harnessing – variations in their environment. the group aims to uncover principles that help us understand how such nonlinearities and feedback can bring about complex – but useful – behavior, all while remaining dedicated to addressing real-world challenges that have a meaningful impact on society.
Biography: In 2016, Johannes T.B. (Bas) Overvelde became a tenure-track Group Leader @AMOLF, an academic institute for the physics of functional and complex matter in Amsterdam, where he started the Soft Robotic Matter Group. Overvelde received tenure in 2021. In 2020, Overvelde was appointed Associate Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). As part of the Dynamics and Control Department, Overvelde works part-time at the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems.
Between 2004 and 2012, Overvelde studied applied physics and mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, where he received both his BSc and MSc degrees in mechanical engineering cum laude. In April 2016, Overvelde finished his PhD in applied mathematics at Harvard University under the direction of professor Katia Bertoldi at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Overvelde’s PhD research focussed on harnessing compliance and instabilities in engineered structural materials and devices to achieve function.
The Soft Robotic Matter Group (www.overvelde.com) focuses on research at the crossroads of soft robotics and mechanical metamaterials. Combining expeirmental and computational tools, the group explores how shape, nonlinearities and feedback can be harnessed to embody “intelligent” behavior in mechanical systems. In particular, the group works on the design, fabrication and fundamental understanding of robotic materials that are capable of autonomously adapting to – and even harnessing – variations in their environment. the group aims to uncover principles that help us understand how such nonlinearities and feedback can bring about complex – but useful – behavior, all while remaining dedicated to addressing real-world challenges that have a meaningful impact on society.
Practical information
- General public
- Free