Welcome to the Sung Robotics Lab!

Interested in joining the group? We actively recruit students from mechanical engineering, computer science, and electrical engineering. Refer to the info under Opportunities depending on your current status.

Our group investigates co-design of robot bodies and control, advancing our understanding of how intelligence can be embedded and distributed throughout a robot’s physical body. By combining computational methods with practical engineering design, we develop algorithms and systems for making robots more maneuverable, robust, and efficient. We have a particular interest in soft and reconfigurable robots and in how we can take advantage of compliance to generate better performance with simpler control, resulting in novel platforms for legged and underwater locomotion, manipulation, and health. Our work lies at the intersection of four major areas:

Computational Methods for
Co-design of Robots
Planning and Control for
Distributed System
Design for Soft and
Origami Robotics
Fabrication for Reconfigurable and
Deployable Systems

We are a member of the Penn Engineering GRASP Lab and the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department at the University of Pennsylvania.


We are grateful for the support of the National Science Foundation, the Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM2D program, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Penn Health-Tech center, and the Penn Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agencies.