ep35 - Cosimo Della Santina: From Dexterous Manipulation to Soft Robotics and Embodied Intelligence

ep35 - Cosimo Della Santina: From Dexterous Manipulation to Soft Robotics and Embodied Intelligence

From inControl by Alberto Padoan

August 15, 2025 · 1h 47m · Season 3 · Episode 9

About this episode

Cosimo Della Santina discusses his journey in robotics, focusing on soft robots and embodied intelligence.

Outline 00:00 – Intro 01:19 – Early steps: PhD journey & robotic hands 15:42 – What is a soft robot? 23:35 – MIT years & models of soft robots 30:01 – Discretization & underactuation 37:21 – The regulation problem 47:01 – Pros and cons of soft robots 51:42 – The soft inverted pendulum 1:05:27 – Eigenmanifolds 1:15:22 – Physical intelligence 1:26:09 – On machine learning 1:37:49 – Embodied AI & TC on Robot Control 1:44:50 – Advice to future students Links - Cosimo’s...

People in this episode

Host: Alberto Padoan

Guest: Cosimo Della Santina

Topics covered

  • soft robotics
  • embodied intelligence
  • robotic manipulation
  • machine learning
  • physical intelligence

Keywords

  • soft robots
  • robotic hands
  • underactuation
  • regulation problem
  • machine learning
  • embodied AI

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MIT

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