News | Physical Intelligence – Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Jiachen Zhang, Yubing Guo, and Xinghao Hu joined the City University of Hong Kong, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Northwestern Polytechnical University, respectively as an assistant professor in China.

Physical Intelligence News 19-11-2020 The “top ten Ph.D. graduates of Harbin Institute of technology” award Congratulations to our alumni Xinjian Fan, who was just awarded as one of the top ten Ph.D. graduates in Harbin Institute of Technology, China. Fan Xinjian Xiaoguang Dong Alp Can Karacakol Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 11-11-2020 Bioinspired cilia help understand which movement pattern generates maximal fluid flows Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, develop artificial cilia that can be programmed to move in waves. In experiments, the researchers show how the millimeter-small cilia can pump viscous liquids just as effectively as their natural counterparts. Their research helps shed light on the mystery regarding which movement pattern generates a maximal fluid flow. Published in Science Advances, their findings contribute to a better understanding of the biomechanics of real cilia, and to the development of miniature robotic pumping devices that could one day be used inside the human body. Xiaoguang Dong Wenqi Hu Ziyu Ren Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 09-11-2020 Metin Sitti receives the «Breakthrough of the Year» Award at the Fallings Walls World Science Summit in Berlin A Director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Sitti is one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of physical intelligence. He is a pioneer in several areas of research, among them wireless tiny medical robots, gecko-inspired adhesives, and bio-inspired miniature robots. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 02-11-2020 Metin Sitti received the "Breakthrough of the Year" Award

Physical Intelligence News 26-10-2020 Stealth microrobots fly under the radar of the immune system Our immune system generally protects us from pathogens but sometimes it can work against us by eliminating drugs or other therapeutics circulating in our bloodstream Pol Cabanach Xifro Abdon Pena-Francesch Devin Sheehan Ugur Bozuyuk Oncay Yasa Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 15-10-2020 Meng Li receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The scientist working in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart will be supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for two years to continue her soft robotic research in Germany. Meng Li Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 02-10-2020 Junghwan Byun: received a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-10-2020 Wendong Wang becomes Assistant Professor at UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Physical Intelligence News 24-09-2020 Solar-battery effect enables a new light-driven organic microswimmer to operate in the dark An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Intelligent Systems and Solid State Research has developed a biocompatible microswimmer made of carbon nitride, which they can propel forward through light. The particle can also store solar energy similar to miniature solar cells equipped with batteries, and can thus also swim in the dark using the stored energy. Even if the illumination is turned off, it can move forward for about half an hour with just 30 seconds of prior illumination. The photo-charging ability of this newly developed microswimmer opens up many opportunities for targeted drug delivery, environmental remediation, and other potential applications for such photo-chargeable micro- and nanomachines. Varun Sridhar Metin Sitti Filip Podjaski Bettina Lotsch

Physical Intelligence Award 01-09-2020 Meng Li, Sungwoo Chun and Shuaizhong Zhang received the Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-08-2020 Hamed Shahsavan becomes Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo

Physical Intelligence News 27-07-2020 Self-healing soft material outsmarts nature A soft material that heals itself instantaneously is now reality. A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and at Pennsylvania State University tune the nanostructure of a new stretchable material in such a way that it now entirely recovers its structure and properties at the blink of an eye after being cut or poked. The squid-inspired material could revolutionize the research field of soft robotics. Since it can reverse any undergone damage, it makes many real-world applications possible in which robots have to deal with dynamic and unpredictable environments. Abdon Pena-Francesch Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 24-07-2020 Hakan Ceylan wins the 2020 Günter Petzow Prize The senior research scientist in the Physical Intelligence Department received the award during the virtual 2020 Intelligent Systems Summer Colloquium Hakan Ceylan Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 02-07-2020 Video: Microrobots roll against blood flow to deliver drugs With the help of magnetic fields, the bots might one day navigate the circulatory system to target tumors Drug-carrying microrobots offer a way to deliver treatments straight to where they are needed, such as tumors deep within the body. But most bots designed in labs have so far been limited to easy-to-reach targets such as the gut. Now, researchers have developed drug-delivering “microrollers” that can move against blood flow (Sci. Robot. 2020, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aba5726). With the help of a magnetic field, these two-faced particles might one day navigate our circulatory system to deliver treatments to tumors. The microrollers are coated on one side with magnetic materials and on the other with antibodies specific to cancer cells. These antibodies would help the particles selectively bind to tumors in the body, where they could release their payload. This targeted approach could minimize exposure of healthy cells to cancer drugs, reducing side effects. Metin Sitti Yunus Alapan Ugur Bozuyuk

Physical Intelligence News 20-05-2020 EML Webinar by Prof. Metin Sitti, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Our Director Metin Sitti hosted an Extreme Mechanical Letters (EML) Webinar with the topic "Soft-bodied Small-Scale Robots". The EML Webinars are a series of very prestigious lectures with many great speakers. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 20-05-2020 Rolling into the deep Scientists took a leukocyte as the blueprint and developed a microrobot that has the size, shape and moving capabilities of a white blood cell. They covered the ball-shaped microroller with a magnetic nanofilm on one side and with anti-cancer drugs on the other. Simulating a blood vessel in a laboratory setting, they succeeded in magnetically navigating the microroller through this dynamic and dense environment. The drug-delivery vehicle withstood the simulated blood flow, pushing the developments in targeted drug delivery a step further: inside the body, there is no better access route to all tissues and organs than the circulatory system. A robot that could actually travel through this finely woven web would revolutionize the minimally-invasive treatment of illnesses. Yunus Alapan Ugur Bozuyuk Pelin Erkoc Alp Can Karacakol Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Appointment 15-05-2020 Metin Sitti becomes Affiliated Professor at ETH Zurich

Physical Intelligence News 14-05-2020 Reprogramming of macroscopic self-assembly with dynamic boundaries Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart aim to understand the underlying process of self-assembly. Their findings not only provide valuable insights into fundamental physics, but could enable the design of functional materials or self-assembled miniature robots. Utku Culha Zoey Davidson Massimo Mastrangeli Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 28-04-2020 Hakan Ceylan received the Günter Petzow Prize.

Physical Intelligence News 28-04-2020 Scientists outsmart nature by building super liquid-repellent dry adhesives A specific fibril tip shape design is the key to achieving elastic dry fibril adhesives with super liquid repellency. This new bioinspired material opens up many possibilities for use, as it prevents any form of liquid droplet or layer from hindering or degrading its adhesion. Ville Liimatainen Dirk Drotlef Donghoon Son Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 26-02-2020 Underwater Snail-o-Bot gets kick from light Light-fueled liquid crystal gels used to create robot inspired by aquatic invertebrates Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart in cooperation with Tampere University in Finland developed a gel-like robot inspired by sea slugs and snails they are able to steer with light. Much like the soft body of these aquatic invertebrates, the bioinspired robot is able to deform easily inside water when exposed to this energy source. Due to specifically aligned molecules of liquid crystal gels – its building material – and illumination of specific parts of the robot, it is able to crawl, walk, jump, and swim inside water. The scientists see their research project as an inspiration for other roboticists who struggle to design untethered soft robots that are able to move freely in a fluidic environment. Such inventions could one day play a pivotal role in the research field of minimally-invasive robotic medical applications. Hamed Shahsavan Amirreza Aghakhani Metin Sitti Yubing Guo

Physical Intelligence News 03-02-2020 Acoustically driven microrobot outshines natural microswimmers Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have designed and fabricated an untethered microrobot that can slip along either a flat or curved surface in a liquid when exposed to ultrasound waves. Its propulsion force is two to three orders of magnitude stronger than the propulsion force of natural microorganisms such as bacteria or algae. Additionally, it can transport cargo while swimming. The acoustically propelled robot hence has significant potential to revolutionize the future minimally invasive treatment of patients. Metin Sitti Amirreza Aghakhani Oncay Yasa

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Hakan Ceylan named as a College for Life Science Fellow by Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Hamed Shahsavan joined University of Waterloo as an assistant professor in Canada.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Immihan Ceren Yasa named as an Innovation Fellow at Novartis, Basel, Switzerland.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Vimal Kishore joined Banaras Hindu University as an assistant professor in India.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Wendong Wang joined University of Michigan - Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute as an assistant professor in China.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2020 Hamed Shahsavan, Amirreza Aghakhani, Yubing Guo, Zoey Davidson, and Metin Sitti were the Cozzarelli Prize Finalist in the Engineering and Applied Sciences category in the PNAS journal for the research article entitled, “Bioinspired underwater locomotion of light-driven liquid crystal gels” (1 paper won the prize and our paper was the finalist out of over 4000 papers published in PNAS in 2020).

Physical Intelligence News 22-07-2019 Jiachen Zhang receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The scientist working in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart will be supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for two years to continue his soft robotic research in Germany. Jiachen Zhang

Physical Intelligence News 02-07-2019 Jellyfish-inspired robot wins Best Paper Award in prestigious Robotics Science & Systems Conference The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart who invented Jellyfishbot win the Best Paper Award at a prestigious robotics conference and have their work published in Nature Communications. Their research holds great potential when investigating the impact of environmental changes in the ocean’s ecosystem. Another aim is for Jellyfishbot to be applied in the treatment of cancer. Metin Sitti Xiaoguang Dong Wenqi Hu Ziyu Ren Tianlu Wang Valerie Callaghan

Physical Intelligence News 25-06-2019 Novel approach to self-assembling mobile micromachines How the components come together depends on their design and shape and the resulting dielectrophoretic forces when exposed to an electric field. Metin Sitti Yunus Alapan Mehmet Berk Yigit

Physical Intelligence News 28-03-2019 Leading researcher in small-scale robotics receives ERC Advanced Grant One of the world's most prestigious research funding programs supports Intelligent Systems research in Stuttgart The European Research Council is awarding a 2.5 million Euros research grant to Dr. Metin Sitti, who is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. Sitti is the head of the Physical Intelligence Department and one of the world's leading researchers in the field of small-scale and soft robotics and its use in medical applications. The funding will go toward ground-breaking basic research in soft-bodied miniature mobile robots. These tiny machines could one day have a radical impact on non-invasive medical interventions and diagnostics. Metin Sitti Richard Segar

Physical Intelligence News 22-03-2019 Metin Sitti publishes a News & Views article in Nature Robotic collectives inspired by biological cells A robotic system has been demonstrated in which the random motion of individual components leads to deterministic behaviour, much as occurs in living systems. Environmental and medical applications could follow. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Guillermo Amador joined Wageningen University as an assistant professor in Netherlands.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Hakan Ceylan and Metin Sitti's medical microrobotics research was featured as among “5 amazing projects that will change the future of healthcare” by the PC Magazine.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Matthew Woodward joined Tufts University as an assistant professor in USA.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Metin Sitti received the ERC Advanced Grant for the project titled, "SoMMoR: Soft-bodied Miniature Mobile Robots".

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Morteza Amjadi joined Heriot-Watt University as an assistant professor in UK.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Musab Cagri Ugurlu received the Ministry of Education PhD fellowship from Turkey.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Xinjian Fan and Mingtong Li received the CSC PhD fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Jiachen Zhang and Yichao Tang received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2019 Ziyu Ren, Tianlu Wang, Wenqi Hu, and Metin Sitti received the Best Paper Award in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference for the research paper entitled, "A Magnetically Actuated Untethered Jellyfish-Inspired Soft Milliswimmer".

Physical Intelligence Award 19-12-2018 Hamed Shahsavan received the Canadian NSERC postdoctoral fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 06-12-2018 Wenqi Hu, Guo Zhan Lum, and Metin Sitti received the Innovator of the Year Award in medical devices topic by the Design & Elektronik Magazine in Germany due to the invention of soft medical robots.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-12-2018 Ahmet F. Tabak and Metin Sitti were the Best Medical Robotics Award Finalist in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Conference for the research paper entitled, “Mechanical Rubbing of Blood Clots Using Helical Robots Under Ultrasound Guidance”.

Physical Intelligence News 22-11-2018 Metin Sitti receives Rahmi Koç Medal of Science Award recognizes most promising researchers of Turkish origin Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 21-11-2018 Metin Sitti received the Rahmi Koç Medal of Science, in Turkey, which is given to one world-wide pioneering Turkish-origin scientist each year.

Physical Intelligence News 27-08-2018 A slippery world in bio-inspired robotics A roboticist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems studies the multifunctional feet of the desert locust and its jumping behavior on different surfaces to extract the traits which contribute to enhancing surface friction and stop slips. The scientist then built a robot inspired by the locust. His findings about the morphological intelligence of the insect contribute to solving the complex locomotion problems seen in even the most advanced robots. This new field of research is increasingly gaining attention within the scientific community, so much so that renowned science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the researcher´s findings in its latest edition. Matthew Woodward Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 13-07-2018 Wenqi Hu received the Günter Petzow Prize.