
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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