About us

The Adaptive Polymer System (APS) group, lead by Jun.-Prof. Gianluca Rizzello, was established in 2020. The overall vision of the APS group is the development of intelligent actuator and sensor systems based on smart material transducers, such as shape memory alloys (SMA) and dielectric elastomers (DE).  At APS, we firmly believe that intelligent algorithms  represent the true key for bringing the intelligence of smart material systems to real-life applications. Therefore, we focus our research efforts in the development of mathematical models, simulation tools, as well as control & self-sensing algorithms which allow to enhance the performance of complex smart material systems. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, we are able to develop novel applications that exploit their true potential of smart material transducers, thus enabling the next generation of intelligent mechatronic devices.

Our research & teaching activities are focused on, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Smart material systems modeling & simulation
• Motion & interaction control systems
• Sensorless methods
• Real-time algorithm implementation
• Soft actuators
• Continuum & soft robots
• Distributed actuators & loudspeakers