{"id":5,"date":"2018-05-09T18:56:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T22:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/morphable-biorobotics\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:57:18","slug":"morphable-biorobotics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Welcome to the Morphable Biorobotics Lab!<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>The Morphable Biorobotics lab at Boston University focuses\u00a0on <strong>robotics<\/strong>, and how robotic technologies can impact society. <\/span>We are\u00a0particularly interested in how robotics can improve our lives and create new opportunities in fields like medicine, surgery, rehabilitation, and exploration.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gNl7Giym01Y?si=JR7XCleieatXAnyu\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><iframe height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L5RwFjfWQ1w?si=LIsBpZ6dS_2BVPRT\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><iframe height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4D1mtQZWNGQ?si=yRJLNr8PFGzUgTAl\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span>\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><br \/>\n<\/iframe><iframe height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fCD5fG-MviY?si=EM6iMxwNS_Bf1cau\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span>&amp;lt;span data-mce-type=&#8221;bookmark&#8221; style=&#8221;display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;&#8221; class=&#8221;mce_SELRES_start&#8221;&amp;gt;\ufeff&amp;lt;\/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span data-mce-type=&#8221;bookmark&#8221; style=&#8221;display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;&#8221; class=&#8221;mce_SELRES_start&#8221;&amp;gt;\ufeff&amp;lt;\/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br \/&amp;gt;<\/iframe><iframe height=\"175\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aD5bMA82suo?si=W83UpKeIwSsQOuT2\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span>\ufeff<\/span>&amp;lt;span data-mce-type=&#8221;bookmark&#8221; style=&#8221;display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;&#8221; class=&#8221;mce_SELRES_start&#8221;&amp;gt;\ufeff&amp;lt;\/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span data-mce-type=&#8221;bookmark&#8221; style=&#8221;display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;&#8221; class=&#8221;mce_SELRES_start&#8221;&amp;gt;\ufeff&amp;lt;\/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br \/&amp;gt;<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span>Our research focuses on <strong>design and manufacturing of novel robotic systems<\/strong> that exploit advanced materials, novel actuation,\u00a0and sensing modalities to operate in\u00a0<strong>highly\u00a0unstructured and\u00a0complex environments<\/strong>. This\u00a0requires a strong interdisciplinary research effort in\u00a0mechanics, materials, design, and manufacturing to build\u00a0novel robotic platforms able to exploit their structure as well as the materials they are made of, to address challenging real-world scenarios. In addition, novel approaches to robot architectures and\u00a0<\/span>components require the\u00a0<span>development of appropriate control strategies for systems that integrate these components.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We use <strong>bioinspiration<\/strong> as a design tool. Nature can provide powerful inspiration sources for finding solutions to engineering problems. In particular, the study of how animals use soft body parts to move in complex, unpredictable environments can provide useful design tools for robotic applications. Mimicking animals requires investigating the most suitable technological solutions, and often new hardware and software approaches have to be developed as well, including new materials, mechanisms, sensors, actuators, and control schemes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The main research areas of the lab are <strong>Soft Robotics,<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Medical Devices, and Bioinspired Robotics<\/strong>. We aim to develop the next generation of medical devices and robots capable of providing advanced adaptation capabilities to unstructured and complex environments. We are particularly interested in how robotics could change the way therapy is delivered, enabling less invasive and more effective approaches to become viable.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You can check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/publications\/\">Publications<\/a> page and our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCOuTuiNGJg9Msyrt5TUEE-w\">YouTube channel<\/a> to learn more about our work.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-636x405.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"636\" height=\"405\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1253 aligncenter\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-636x405.png 636w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-1024x652.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-768x489.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-1536x977.png 1536w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/files\/2024\/02\/MBL_Logo_Official-2048x1303.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"style1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The lab was founded within the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/departments\/me\/\">Boston University Department of Mechanical Engineering<\/a> by Prof. Tommaso Ranzani. It houses all the necessary tools to design, fabricate, and characterize\u00a0novel robotic devices. The lab employs a highly experimental approach to develop robots and we use these robots as tools to explore fundamental questions in soft robotics, actuation, fluid mechanics, controls, and material science.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the Morphable Biorobotics Lab!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14759,"featured_media":1253,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/no-sidebars.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ranzani-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}