AME - Fabricating and Characterizing an Optical Fiber Shape Sensor
Our lab is aiming to deploy a soft growing robot into challenging environments where the robot’s shape cannot be observed directly. This increases the challenges of operating it. To solve this, we would like to create an optical fiber-based shape sensor that can conform to the robot’s shapes and accurately display that shape to the teleoperating user.
We have a proof of concept for this device, but need a student to finish working out a process to fabricate it consistently, calibrate the sensor, and deploy it on our robot. This will require hands-on fabrication, programming in MATLAB, and experiments using both the optical fiber strain sensors and our motion capture system. We aim to complete this work in Spring/Summer 2026 and publish a journal paper on the results.
The IRIS Lab seeks to create a productive, fun, and welcoming research community. All IRIS Lab research is oriented towards the publication of a paper in a well-respected conference and/or journal. We have weekly lab meetings where students get to know each other personally and learn about each other's research, and we do a fun lab outing every semester.