LMTS: Soft Transducers Lab (Prof. H. Shea)

Introduction to the LMTS

We develop reliable soft stretchable compliant actuators, sensors and transducers. Our research cuts across different miniaturized actuator technologies, with a primary focus on elastomer-based solutions and multi-functional stretchable materials. We are part of the EPFL Institute of Mechanical Engineering.

Our core research areas are:

• Miniaturized polymer actuators and soft transducers for a broad range of applications including soft robotics, dextrous manipulation, microfluidics and tunable optics. 
• Wearable Haptic displays for VR/AR applications and for visually impaired users, allowing dynamic graphical information such as maps or virtual 3D shapes to be explored using one’s sense of touch.
• MEMS and Printed Microsystems. (Dr. D. Briand, MER) Environmentally-friendly and sustainable MEMS processes and materials. Flexible, printed electronics and microsystems. Digital and additive manufacturing.

News

	9-2022. With Prof Anne Skov (DTU) and Prof Neel Joshi (Northeastern), we are honored to have received a 7 milion euro award from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to develop soft exoskeletons using novel materials for artificial muscles.
	8-2022. Bekir and Yufei’s soft force sensors published in Nature Communications
	our latest wearable clutch enables variable friction, so that a virtual brick feels hard, and a virtual sponge feels squishy
	6-2021. OmniGrasp wins the EuroEAP Society Industry challenge! congrats to Vito & Valentin!
	5-2021 Our Test bench for automated lifetime studies of DEAs published in Smart Materials and Structures 11-2021: Using the DEA test bench to study the effect of T, %RH, applied electric field, etc on the lifetime of DEAs Smart Materials and Structures
	10-2020 Untethered Feel-through haptics based on 18µm thick DEAs published in Advanced Functional Materials.
	9-2020 Inkjet Printing of Complex Soft Machines in Advanced Intelligent Systems
	7-2020. HAXELs are soft and powerful haptic actuators published in Advanced Materials
	5-2020. Reconfigurable morphing surface using DEA + SMP appears in Advanced Functional Materials.
	1-2020. High force textile electrostatic clutch published in Advanced Materials Technologies.
	12-2019: Science Robotics article published on our soft robotic insect. some movies! EPFL press release
	11-2019 new movies for our soft gripper
	10-2019 Nature Communications Article on a highly sensitive InfraRed detector based on Shape Memory Polymers (with prof. G. Villanueva)
	8- 2019 We  developed a thin stretchable pump, that can be twisted, bent, stretched, while pushing liquid along the channel. Gram for gram, our pump performs as well as an aquarium pump or a workshop compressor, but is completely silent, and has no moving parts. published in the journal Nature in August 2019. Details and movies here.

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