Magnetic & Medical Robotics Laboratory
Jake Abbott, Lab Director
Welcome to the Magnetic & Medical Robotics Lab in the Robotics Center and Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah! Many of our projects incorporate magnetic technologies in robotics, with a large focus on the use of magnetic fields to dexterously manipulate objects without any physical contact. Many of our projects consider medical applications of robotics, with a large focus on the application of magnetics in medical robotics. Some of our projects consider a human operator as a physical element of the control loop, which is a topic referred to as "haptics", and most of our haptics projects are aimed at medical applications or use magnetic technologies.
TO PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS:
If you are currently a student at the University of Utah and are interested in doing research in the M&M Robotics Lab, please contact me.
If you are not currently enrolled at the University of Utah, but are interested in pursuing a graduate degree here, you should apply to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, or the School of Computing, as applicable to your background, and indicate in your application that you are interested in working with me. Your admission, and any funding offer, will be based on your complete application package relative to other students applying to our program. I am not able to respond to emails about applications to our graduate program, or about my current open positions, due to high email volume. However, you may send me an email notification of your application if you would like to bring it to my attention.
Lab news
- August 10, 2023
Alan Kuntz (PI) and Jake Abbott (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant “Modeling, Control, and Motion Planning of Magnetic-screw Microrobots in Soft Tissue”. $740,283, 9/1/2023-8/31/2026.
- July 24, 2023
Jake Abbott and Rogue Space Systems were awarded a Space Force STTR Phase 2 grant “Use of Rotating Magnetic Fields to Detumble Irregular Asymmetric Space Debris-Like Objects”. $420,000. 7/24/2023-10/23/2023.
- March 21, 2023
Congratulations to Dr. A. J. Sperry, who successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation today!
- March 1, 2023
Andrés Rosero successfully defended this M.S. thesis. Great job Andrés!
- August 30, 2022
Jake Abbott (PI) Tommaso Lenzi (co-PI), and Shad Roundy (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation grant “Magnetic Cogging Parallel-elastic Actuators for Energy-efficient Robotic Legs”. $732,643, 1/1/2023-12/31/2025.