Georgia Tech Student Wins Best Student Paper Award

Paper "Walking and running on yielding and fluidizing ground" has been awarded the Best Student Paper at the Robotics Science & Systems (RSS) 2012 meeting in Sydney, Australia. Ph.D. student Feifei Qian (School of Physics, advisor Professor Daniel I. Goldman) presented this paper, which studies the detailed locomotor mechanics of a small, lightweight robot (DynaRoACH, 10 cm, 25 g) which can move on a granular substrate of closely packed 3 mm diameter glass particles at speeds up to 50 cm/s (5 body length/s), approaching the performance of small, high-performing, desert-dwelling lizards. Using small robots as physical models, this paper reveals a mechanism by which small animals can achieve high performance on granular substrates, which in return advances the design and control of small robots in deformable terrains. More information about research conducted in Professor Daniel Goldman's Complex Rheology And Biomechanics Lab in the School of Physics at (CRAB).