Shane Rozen-Levy

Penn Engineering Research Collaboration Hub

3401 Grays Ferry Avenue

Philadelphia, PA 19146

I am interested in leveraging my knowledge of dynamics and controls to create robust behaviors in robots with interesting, and often times hybrid, dynamics. My dream is to find a way to combine the robustness to model errors that you get from a simple template based controller with the robustness to physical disturbances that you get with an optimization based controller. I believe that to make a working robot, it is crucial to test frequently on hardware, to not be afraid of failure, and to learn from those failures.

Currently I’m working with the Penn Jerboa to study how we might take advantage of both natural and man made hybrid transitions and multipurpose appendages to control a highly underacted (4 motors and 12 degree of freedom), but power dense biped.

selected publications

The design and development of Branch Bot: a branch-crawling, caterpillar-inspired, soft robot

Rozen-Levy, Shane, Messner, William, and Trimmer, Barry A

The International Journal of Robotics Research Jan 2021

Abs

A soft climbing robot has the potential to access locations such as wiring ducts and tree canopies that are unreachable by humans and traditional rigid robots. In addition, a soft robot is robust and can fall without damaging itself or its environment. We present a soft, branch-crawling robot that is inspired by the passive gripping mechanisms used by caterpillars. The conformability of the robot’s soft body makes it uniquely suited to move in a complex 3D environment. A key innovation is that grip release is actively controlled and coordinated with propulsion generated by stored elastic energy. The robot is molded from silicone rubber and actuated using remote motor-tendons coupled to the structure through Bowden cables. Grip is achieved passively through an elastic flexure that pushes a compliant finger against the dowel. Experimental results show that the gripper is easily able to support the weight of the robot, and that the body structure allows the robot to crawl horizontally, vertically, and along branches. This robot demonstrates some key advantages of a soft robotic platform over traditional rigid robots.