Robotics Research Groups, Centers, Initiatives

We are closely linked with multidisciplinary and innovative education and research groups and initiatives.

Computational Robotics Lab

The Computational Robotics Lab, directd by Professor Heng (Hank) Yang, studies the algorithmic foundations of robot perception, action, and learning. We are broadly interested in estimation and decision-making with performance gurantees.

Designing Emergence Laboratory

The Designing Emergence Laboratory, directed by Professor Justin Werfel, is interested in understanding and designing complex and emergent systems—systems of many independent interacting components, where each component may be understood very well in isolation, but when many of them get together, some interesting new collective behavior appears. The group studies these systems from both a scientific and an engineering standpoint.

Harvard Ability Lab

The Harvard Ability Lab, directed by Professor Patrick Slade develops devices to overcome mobility challenges and help people live fulfilling lives. We accomplish this by combining biomechanics, advanced robotic devices, and human-centered artificial intelligence to create effective systems. We aim to translate this research into impactful products to improve everyday mobility. 

Harvard Biodesign Lab

The Harvard Biodesign Lab brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, medical, and business communities to develop robots and smart medical devices that are specifically intended for interacting and cooperating with humans. Their work is accomplished through new approaches to design and fabrication of actuation and sensing components (e.g. using soft materials) in addition to the development of appropriate control strategies for systems that integrate these components.

Harvard BIONICs Lab

The Harvard BIONICs Lab, directed by Professor Shriya Srinivasan,  focuses on the development of biohybrid organs, engineering neuromusculature through surgical reconstructions and the incorporation of synthetic sensors and actuators. We co-develop these organs with implantable or wearable neuroprosthetics that perform bidirectional neural communication with the human body. The translational research is aimed towards restoring motor and sensory function for a variety of neuromuscular conditions.

Harvard Biorobotics Lab

The Harvard Biorobotics Lab, directed by Professor Robert Howe, focuses on the role of sensing and mechanical design in motor control, in both robots and humans. This work draws upon diverse disciplines, including biomechanics, systems analysis, and neurophysiology. The main approach is experimental, although analysis and simulation play important parts. In conjunction with industrial partners, we are developing applications of this research in biomedical instrumentation, teleoperated robots, and intelligent sensors.

Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory

The Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory, directed by Professor Robert Wood, houses all the necessary tools to design, create, and evaluate robots with unique sizes, shapes, and material compositions. The lab employs a highly experimental approach to developing robots and uses these robots as tools to explore fundamental questions in micromechanics, actuation, fluid mechanics, controls, and microelectronics. 

Harvard Move Lab

Advances in human performance enhancement have the potential to protect physical abilities against injury, extend them beyond the limits of advancing age, and restore them to people who have lost them. Researchers need support from teams that reflect a thorough understanding of a user’s psychology as much as their physiology, and testing basic hypotheses requires safe and reliable systems developed with a level of design and engineering effort out of reach to most academic endeavors. The Harvard Move Lab builds tightly integrated teams of entrepreneurially minded researchers, clinicians, technologists, designers, and users.They support these teams with space, funding, R&D infrastructure, and the experience necessary to turn promising research into mature technology.

The Lewis Lab

The Lews Lab, directed by Professor Jennifer Lewis, prints multifunctional materials across multiple scales for soft sensors, electronics, and robotics. Their novel inks for 3D printing of functional materials with locally tailored composition, structure, and properties. 

Robotics, Embedded Autonomy & Communication Theory (REACT) Lab

The REACT Lab, directed by Professor Stephanie Gil, develops and analyzes algorithms for robust multi-robot coordination where communication is used as a key enabler to achieving this goal.  The key to effective coordination is information exchange.  Their research looks at ways that use wireless signals to improve communication in multi-robot teams, enhance situational awareness, and secure core multi-agent algorithms.  

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University aims to discover the engineering principles that nature uses to build living things and to harness this knowledge to create biologically inspired materials, devices, and control technologies for medical and non-medical applications.

In medicine, the Institute's goal is to advance the science and engineering necessary to develop biomimetic materials, microdevices, microrobots, and innovative disease reprogramming technologies that emulate how living cells, tissues and organs self-organize and naturally regulate themselves.

A deeper understanding of how living systems build, recycle, and control also will ultimately lead to more efficient ways of converting energy, controlling manufacturing, improving the environment, and creating a more sustainable world.