Adhesive Climbing: Climbing vertical surfaces with controllable, directional dry adhesives. Research includes the continued development of StickybotIII and new adhesives and manufacturing methods.

Mobile Manipulation: Selectively compliant, under-actuated hands with tactile sensing. Research includes hand and grasp analysis and development of artificial skins with pressure, shear and dynamic tactile sensors.

MR compatible tools: Optical fibers are embedded in biopsy needles used for MRI interventions to provide realtime measurement of bending deflections and tip forces. Fibers transmit energy to shape memory alloy (NiTi) actuators for active steering.

Perching: Bio-inspired maneuvers, landing gear and attachment mechanisms enable a small unmanned air vehicle to land and perch on vertical and sloped surfaces.

Wearable Haptics: feedback for altering dynamic motions such as jogging or walking, to reduce the chance of injury or delay the progression of osteoarthritis. Projects include dynamic gait analysis and the development of wearable sensors and feedback devices.

Also looking at AutomotiveHaptics applications

Human-safe and human-centered robotics:developing design tools and methods to mitigate impact damage during unintended human-robot interactions. Projects include collaboration with Prof. Oussama Khatib in the Computer Science Department on the Stanford Safety Robot, incorporation of capacitive skin sensors into robotic platforms for collision detection and post impact behaviors.

Tunable compliance and damping:designing structures based on electroactive polymer actuators with electrically-tunable stiffness and damping properties for use in dynamic systems. Projects include control of damping through electrical boundary conditions and control of stiffness through design geometry and electrical activation as well as applications to the perching UAV.