Dr Rui Wu

My research explores how to materialise morphological computation in robots, where intelligent behaviour emerges from the physical body, rather than solely from a controller.

Since 2012, I have created various mechanical systems functionalised through their morphology. My innovations span various fields including morphing aircrafts, self-regulated structures, minimalistic deep space probes, mechanical metamaterials, and robotics. Recent highlights include Shearigami, a self-folding panel system beyond origami and kirigami; Elastic Rolling Cam (ERC) that enables arbitrary programmability of robot joint responses; open-loop bi-pedal walker with stability encoded in the body’s mechanical parameters.

My ongoing research focuses on robot bodies that function as low level controllers (using passive body dynamics, or fluidic neural networks) and feature extractors (touch sensitive skin).