Abstract

We present our explorations in how advances in wireless systems can offer new opportunities for soft robots, and vice versa. While soft robots grant applications in narrow fields or under intensive human interaction, the robots are powered by on-board batteries, tethered wires, magnetic fields, or lasers, which restrain their mobility in non-line-of-sight, mobile applications. Our work first brings frequency-selective actuation of liquid crystalline elastomer-based soft robots with radio frequency power, through a combined design of soft materials and wireless frontend. We also explore how soft robots can bring capabilities to wireless communication and power delivery by demonstrating waveguide for tumor-treating-field delivery and soft actuatable antennas that automatically reconfigures operating frequencies for software-defined radios. The talk also covers our wireless infrastructure: sensing and programming wireless environment. We show compressed sensing for probing wireless environments and controlling wireless heating inside a microwave oven with frequency-selective surfaces.

About the speaker

Yiwen Song is a fifth-year Ph.D. student at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University. His advisor is Swarun Kumar. His research spans broadly in wireless systems, including communication, sensing, and powering, and he is specifically interested in the intersection between wireless systems, soft materials, and robotics. He has published more than 10 papers in top-tier venues including Nature Communications, MobiCom, MobiHoc, ICRA, etc.