Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Title: |
350 million year connections Paleobiology & Bioinspired Robots |
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Speaker: |
Dr. Aja Carter |
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Affiliation: |
University of Pennsylvania |
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When: |
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 3:00:00 PM |
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Where: |
GTMI Building, Room Auditorium |
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Host: |
Dr. Tequila Harris | |
Abstract The spinal column found across the animal kingdom, from salamanders to elephants, is among the most ancient structures of the Tetrapod Bauplan. Notwithstanding its biological ubiquity, few quadrupedal robots have been designed with internal degrees of freedom (DoF) akin to a biological spine. Moreover, those few freer designs typically entail a single revolute joint that bends in the sagittal plane. While this sagittal bending predominates mammalian spine mobility in highly dynamic behaviors (e.g., the African cheetah), this design is relatively new in the history of life. Throughout the history of animals on the planet, a diversity of spine DOF, and limb stances, has evolved in response to changing environments and ecologies. However, much of that diversity has disappeared with the species that innovated those forms, whose mobility had no bearing on their extinction. In this talk, I will relate such facts to central tenets to paleobiology and evolution and their relevance to bio-inspired robotics. I will discuss modern techniques that allow us to investigate ancient animals similarly to living taxa, opening a new realm for investigating spine and body frame design. I will review my current work investigating the dynamic properties of the vertebral column of one the first sizeable terrestrial tetrapod and the role the spine played in its predator-prey interactions. I will conclude by reviewing new data investigating a combination of spinal DOF, stance, and environment. |
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Biography Aja Carter is a paleobiologist who received her Ph.D. in 2020 from the Earth and Environmental Sciences department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her thesis work focused on the evolution of the spinal column and how the earliest vertebrates transitioned away from the water to land. During that time, she also authored papers on 3D printing technologies to probe the fossil record experimentally. Currently, she is a Vice Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, working in the General Robotics Automation Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab, with the KodLab Group, advised by Daniel Koditschek. Her work is now focused on using the fossil record to inform design of bioinspired spinal columns for quadrupedal robots, as well as understanding the spinal column’s role in dynamic gaits within extinct taxa to better understand whole body mobility, and in turn changes in terrestrial ecosystems through deep time. |
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Notes |
Refreshments will be served. |
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