INnovation in Terramechanics and Experimental Robotics for Complex Terrains
We are a robotics research lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UVM in Burlington, Vermont. Work in our group sits at the exciting intersection of robotic design, physics, and organismal biomechanics. We aim to better understand principles of interaction of agents (robots or animals) with complex and/or unstructured environments. We are particularly interested in scenarios in which interaction mechanics are often not well understood or difficult to characterize– this includes many environments found in nature, including granular materials, clutter or detritus, and cohesive and/or entangled media.
In these scenarios, the need for experimental approaches is exacerbated, and we often use what has been termed “robophysical” approaches. (What is robophysics?) We use mechatronic and robotic platforms as physical models to better understand principles of interaction in the real world. These robophysical platforms often go hand in hand with reduced order mathematical models or other simulation techniques. Our work seeks to bridge this lab-based research with applications in agriculture, ocean and space exploration, geotechnical engineering, and environmental monitoring.
Research Areas
Principal Investigator
Email: laura.treers@uvm.edu Office: Votey Hall 359 Lab: Votey Hall 121
Laura Treers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UVM. Dr. Treers received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 2023, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2018. She completed her postdoctoral training in the Schools of Physics & Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech from 2023-2024, and joined the University of Vermont in summer 2024. Her research interests combine her love of natural settings with robotics, often seeking to better understand how animals and robots interact with challenging, complex substrates.
Courses taught:
Fall 2024: ME 3320A Control Systems
Spring 2025: ME 2990 Mechatronics