Research in the BioMecha Lab involves using a combination of animal biomechanics studies and robotic experiments to first elucidate the principles enabling effective animal locomotion in complex environments and then engineer these principles into bioinspired all-terrain robots.

 

It is widely recognized that robots are useful across a variety of applications including agriculture, ecological monitoring, search and rescue, and extraterrestrial exploration. What all these applications have in common is the complexity of the terrain that the robot must be able to move across: from the uneven soil and mud in a wheat field, to the deep snow, steep slopes, and bad weather preventing rescue of a hiker by humans or drones. While we can observe animals of many shapes and sizes robustly moving through these environments, their apparent ease belies how difficult this problem is, and our engineered devices cannot yet match biology. However, by studying these animals, we can take advantage of the millions of years of adaptation that contributed to their effective mechanics and behaviors.