The Philadelphia Section of the STLE is pleased to award a $1,000 scholarship to U. Penn graduate student Christopher Stabile. Stabile is a PhD student in mechanical engineering, working under the direction of Professor Kevin Turner. His research focuses on investigating adhesion, friction, and mechanics problems related to robotic grasping. The goal of the work is to actively control adhesion and friction in gripping and manipulation in robotics. Using materials with tunable stiffness can allow for systems with tunable mechanical behaviors. Thermally responsive polymers can exhibit changes in elastic moduli of up to three orders of magnitude in response to heating and cooling. The use of these large stiffness changes enables the development of systems with tunable flexural rigidity, adhesion, and friction for use in applications such as robotic gripping and dexterous manipulation, wearable devices and prosthetics, advanced medical equipment, and haptic interfaces.
Stabile’s research includes an investigation of the role of stiffness in versatile robotic grasping through mechanics modeling and grasping experiments conducted using pneumatically actuated robotic grippers of varying stiffness. These analyses inform the selection of stiffness in robotic gripper designs to broaden the range of objects that can be safely and successfully handled.
Stabile has three peer-reviewed publications, including one as first author and has received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.