Biography
Robert Baines is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science, where he leads the Protean Robotics Lab (PRL). PRL studies how robots could change their bodies and brains on demand to better suit the task at hand, working across robot design, control, and materials to build machines that can change shape, adapt how they move, and cope with challenging environmental interactions. Of particular interest are robots that have applications in the real world: Alongside the fundamental science, PRL is working toward robots for ecological monitoring, industrial inspection and maintenance, and space exploration.
Robert studied Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, where he received his BS in 2017, before moving to Yale for his MS (2019) and PhD (2023) in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. He then spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zurich.
Current Research Project
Tensegrity Engineering for Nonlinear Shape-Shifting and Embodied Locomanipulation: design and control robots capable of locomotion and manipulation with tensegrity structures, harnessing mechanical nonlinearities to achieve high performance
Adaptive Shape-Morphing Quadruped Robots for Industrial Task Versatility: replace the limbs of conventional quadrupeds with shape-morphing systems that enable a single robot to adapt to different industrially-oriented tasks
Research Interests
shape-morphing robots, mechanisms, and material systems
reinforcement learning for robot control
physics simulation -mobile manipulation
co-optimization of robot hardware and control policy
soft and bio-inspired robotics
