University of California, Berkeley Mechanical Engineering

Hannah Stuart

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Don M. Cunningham Endowed Professorship in Mechanical Engineering

5138 Etcheverry Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1740
hstuart@berkeley.edu
(510) 643-9786

For more information see: Embodied Dexterity Group (EDG)
Current Classes Taught

Hannah Stuart received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the George Washington University in 2011. She then completed her MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2013 and 2018 respectively. She is an NSF CAREER and NASA Early Career Faculty grant recipient.


Research Description:

Professor Stuart’s research interests include: Dexterous manipulation; Bioinspired design; Soft and multi-material mechanisms; Skin contact conditions; Tactile sensing and haptics.

 

Mobile and assistive robots face a rapidly expanding range of potential applications, including remote exploration and human assistance. In many of these cases, the focus of interaction is via the robot’s contact points, like end-effectors. However, current machines have limited capabilities in comparison to their biological counterparts when complex contact conditions dominate physical interaction.

 

Professor Stuart’s research group is interested in improving robot dexterity with embodied intelligence through studying and designing for the nonidealities of real contact, especially for unstructured environments. This includes the design of (1) novel grippers and hands, (2) touch perception for autonomous interventions and (3) bioinspired manipulation strategies. This vision includes the advancement of relevant design analysis tools and the validation of concepts by applying technologies in the field.

 

Key Publications:

Cao, C., Moon, D., Creager, C., Lieu, D., & Stuart, H. S. (2023). Push-pull locomotion: Increasing travel velocity in loose regolith via induced wheel slip. Journal of Terramechanics, 110, 87–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jterra.2023.08.005
 
Abbott, M., & Stuart†, H. S. (2023). Characterizing the force-motion tradeoff in body-powered transmission design. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 31, 3064–3074. https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSRE.2023.3297549
 
Page, J. J., Treers, L. K., Jorgensen, S. J., Fearing, R. S., & Stuart, H. S. (2023). The robustness of tether friction in non-idealized terrains. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 8(1), 424–431. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2022.3227868
 
Treers, L. K., McInroe, B., Full, R.,&Stuart, H. S. (2022). Mole crab-inspired vertical self-burrowing. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 9, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.999392 
Featured in Berkeley News: https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2022/10/digging-deep/
 
Huh, T. M., Sanders, K., Danielczuk, M., Li, M., Chen, Y., Goldberg, K., & Stuart, H. S. (2021a, December). A multi-chamber smart suction cup for adaptive gripping and haptic exploration. In 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 1786–1793). https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS51168.2021.9635852
 
Li, M. S., Melville, D., Chung, E., & Stuart, H. S. (2020). Milliscale features increase friction of soft skin in lubricated contact. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5(3), 4781-4787. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2020.3003880