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Huai-Ti Lin
Concord Field Station
Harvard University

Biographical sketch

Huai-Ti Lin successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in January 2011at Tufts Department of Biology. His doctoral research focused on the biomechanics and behavioral adaptation in soft-bodied animal locomotion. Specifically, he devised a system to measure the ground reaction forces from a crawling caterpillar and revealed, for the first time, that soft-bodied animals use the substrate as their external skeleton for force transmission. As part of his research in neuromechanics of soft-bodied locomotion, Huai-Ti also studied non-linear behaviors of soft materials and worked in the Mechanics of Soft Materials Laboratory. To investigate how to embed adaptive behaviors as part of the soft material mechanics, he was also involved with the development of soft robots at Tufts Biomimetic Devices Laboratory in collaboration with Tufts Department of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. Beside many soft crawling-inching robots he created, Huai-Ti also implemented a ballistic rolling robot to mimic an escape behavior in caterpillars. This dynamic morphing behavior allows over 0.5m/s speed for this caterpillar soft robot, making yet another record for soft robots of this class.

Huai-Ti has moved on to animal flight research and UAV robotics for his post-doctoral training. Flight has always been his passion. However, his interest in soft-bodied animal locomotion and soft robotics technology still remain. Someday he might come back to them as opportunities present themselves. For now, he will take flight.

Publications

• Lin HT, Dorfmann, AL and Trimmer, BA. Soft cuticle biomechanics: A constitutive model of anisotropy for caterpillar integument, J. Theor. Biol. 256 (2009), 447–457.
   
• Lin HT and Trimmer BA. Substrate as a skeleton: Ground reaction forces from a soft-bodied legged animal. J. Expt. Biol. 213 (2010), 1133-1142.
   
• Lin HT and Trimmer BA. caterpillars use the substrate as their external skeleton: a behavior confirmation. J. Communicative & Integrative Biol. 3 (2010), 71-74.
   
• Lin HT, Slate DJ, Paetsch CR, Dorfmann AL and Trimmer BA. Scaling of caterpillar body properties and its biomechanical implications on the use of a hydrostatic skeleton. J. Expt. Biol. 214 (2011), 1194-204.
   
• Lin HT, Leisk GG and Trimmer BA. GoQBot: A caterpillar-inspired soft-bodied rolling robot. Bioinspir. Biomim. 6 (2011).
   

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