Natural swarms, such as ants, bees, and termites, exhibit sophisticated colony level behaviors with remarkably scalable and error tolerant properties. Their evolutionary success stems from more than just intelligent individuals, it hinges on their morphology, their physical interactions, and the way they shape and leverage their environment. Petersen's research explores how the same principles can be leveraged to achieve advanced autonomy in robot collectives, through hardware and software co-development, and by integrating the shared environment into the design process. Current research themes span collective robotic construction, human swarm interaction, soft robot collectives, biological swarms, and bio-hybrid collectives.
Kirstin did her postdoctoral work with Director Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems 2014-2016 and became a fellow with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems in 2015. Her thesis was completed in 2014 with Professor Nagpal at Harvard University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. She completed a masters in Computer Systems Engineering with Professor Hallam at the University of Southern Denmark in 2008, and a bachelor in electro-technical engineering with Odense University College of Engineering in 2005.
New research from Cornell's Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab examines how popcorn’s unique qualities can power inexpensive robotic devices that grip, expand or change rigidity. Read more about A kernel of promise in popcorn-powered robots
Expanding on Cornell’s digital agriculture initiative, a slate of six projects totaling more than $1 million will generate innovative research in the intersecting fields of agriculture, computation and engineering. Read more about Cornell projects to cultivate digital agriculture landscape
Kirstin Petersen, assistant professor (ECE), answers questions from EEWeb as its featured engineer. Read more about EEWeb Featured engineer: Kirstin Petersen
