Seminar: Co-design of hardware and control for physically interactive robots, Dr Efi Psomopoulou, University of Bristol

Bio

Efi Psomopoulou is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Engineering Mathematics and Technology at the University of Bristol and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and a member of the Dexterous Robotics Theme. Her main research interest is to investigate and control the physical interactions of robots with the environment in unstructured scenarios. She has worked on control of variable stiffness joint robots, haptic feedback during minimally invasive surgery, human-to-robot object handovers, stable grasping and in-hand manipulation. She has over 20 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and conferences. She is co-I on the MANiBOT project (Horizon Europe RIA, €8M) advancing the physical intelligence and performance of robots towards human-like bi-manual objects manipulation. She is also co-chair of the IEEE RAS Women in Engineering committee and elected member of the UK-RAS Early Career Forum. More information here: https://efipsom.github.io/

Abstract

For robot manipulators to move out of industrial settings and into human environments, they will need physical intelligence for their interactions with the environment and humans and they will also need the dexterous capabilities of the human hand. This raises many unsolved problems, from designing the mechanisms and actuator technologies for such dexterous manipulators to their fine motor control with force and tactile sensing capabilities. These problems are interlinked: the mechanism for a manipulator is interdependent with its control which is interdependent with its sensing capabilities. This talk will present my past and recent work towards solving these problems.