Labs + Facilities

The BIOTICS Lab, let by Troy Olsson, incorporates devices into microsystems enabling new functionality in health/edge IoT. They invent new devices or improve existing concepts leading to breakthroughs in performance for edge devices. They also optimize the properties of emerging active materials and develop nanofabrication techniques for forming devices. Their vision: micro/nanosystems for IoT, health, and spectrum.

The Chaudhari Group, led by Pratik Chaudhari, focuses on (a) theoretical problems in deep learning, and (b) visual perception in robotics. They conduct quite multi-disciplinary research along these lines. They use ideas from information theory, neuroscience, and physics in addition to more classical perspectives from learning theory and computer vision. Everyone, from engineers and computer scientists to mathematicians and physicists will find something interesting to study in this group.

The Device Research and Engineering Laboratory, led by Deep Jariwala, is engaged in the study, design, and development of nanometer and atomic scale devices, materials and interfaces for applications in computing, sensing, information technology and renewable energy. Our research is highly inter-disciplinary involving expertise from Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Condensed Matter Physics, Optics as well as Physical Chemistry.

The EPM Lab, led by Firooz Aflatouni, studies integrated electronic-photonic co-design with the goal of improving the performance of electronic systems using photonic devices and improving the performance of photonic systems by incorporating electronic devices and techniques. Applications of electronic-photonic co-design include communication, imaging, Radar, LIDAR, and multi-modal bio-sensing. We design both electronic and photonic chips and package our fabricated chips to form the electronic-photonic system and we measure its performance. In monolithic approach, both electronic and photonic systems are designed and fabricated on a single platform.

We are also interested in low power integrated RF, mm-wave, and sub-mm-wave circuits and systems with applications in detection and sensing, communication, and bio-technology.

The Engheta Group, run by Nader Engheta, is interested in the science and technology of fields and waves. We are exploring a variety of research scenarios in wave-matter interaction, in both the optical as well as microwave domains.

The Hassani Group, let by Hamed Hassani, focuses on research areas such as responsible AI (safety, robustness, etc.), uncertainty quantification for AI systems and its applications in safety-critical domains (e.g., autonomous driving, healthcare, etc.), (neural) data compression, mathematical foundations of deep learning, submodular optimization and its applications in machine, distributed / federated learning, modern coding theory, (large-scale) probabilistic models, and graph matching: theory and algorithms.

The Implementation of Computation Group, under André DeHon, studies how we physically implement computations. Efforts span from algorithms and problem descriptions, through compute models, architectures, and runtime systems, and down to physical substrates, including work on design mapping between these levels.

The JIRL Lab, led by Antonio Loquercio, brings expertise from the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, control theory, and computer vision to the design of intelligent systems that can perceive, reason, and act in complex environments.

The Kagan Group, led by Cherie Kagan, is focused on studying the chemical and physical properties of nanostructured materials and in integrating materials with optical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical, and thermal properties for (multi-)functional devices. They combine the flexibility of chemistry and bottom-up assembly with top-down fabrication techniques to design materials and devices. They explore the properties of materials and measure the characteristics of devices using spatially- and temporally-resolved optical spectroscopies, AC and DC electrical techniques, electrochemistry, scanning probe and electron microscopies, and analytical measurements

Kod*lab, led by Dan Koditschek, is a locomotion-centric component of the GRASP lab that includes a large component of the 10,000 sq. ft. PERCH facility devoted to various legged robots. The specialized control infrastructure and interface to standard operating systems used to perform experiments with these machines has been documented in the referred literature. At present there are two Ghost Minitaurs, three XRHex hexapedal robot, and a variety of experimental legged systems (Inu, Delta Hopper, Jerboa) in various partial states of redesign, rebuilding or completion.

The Matni Group, led by Nikolai Matni, research is focused on developing learning-based control strategies for the design of safe and robust autonomous networked systems. Their research interests include machine and reinforcement learning, robust and distributed optimal control, robotics, convex optimization, and cyber-physical systems

The MSMA Group, Led by Mark Allen, is dedicated to advancing the state of the art of microfabrication and nanofabrication technology, with emphasis on new approaches to fabricate devices with characteristic lengths in the micro- to nanoscale from both silicon and non-silicon materials; and demonstrating these devices in multiple application spaces ranging from energy storage, harvesting, and conversion to biomedical structures and devices

The Miskin Lab, led by Marc Miskin, Is a team of researchers interested in building robots (and other things) too small to see by eye (sub-mm). They use nanofabrication to build tiny robots that can emulate living systems at their most fundamental scale.

The Pappas Group, led by George Pappas, focuses on control systems, robotics, autonomous systems, formal methods, and machine learning for safe and secure cyber-physical systems.

The PennCIL lab, led by Jing (Jane) Li, is exploring non-conventional computing paradigms beyond Von Neumann computing, to make future computer systems more intelligent, performant, energy efficient, robust, and secure.

The PENGUIN Lab, led by Lei Gu, is a research group passionate about building circuits — especially in the field of power electronics. Their focus is on creating efficient, compact systems that power exciting technologies, including renewable energy platforms, AI hardware, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines, semiconductor processing tools, robotics, and electric vehicles.

The Quantum Engineering Lab, Led by Lee Bassett, studies quantum dynamics in nanoscale materials and devices using optics and electronics. They seek to better understand complex quantum-mechanical systems, with a goal of developing new technologies for communication, computation, and sensing based on quantum physics.

The Penn Quantum Hardware Lab, led by Anthony Sigillito, is working to engineer the next generation of quantum computing hardware based on nuclear and electronic spins in semiconductors. Their research is primarily focused on developing quantum computing hardware based on lithographically-defined Si/SiGe quantum dot devices. One can make a quantum bit (qubit) out of all sorts of different systems: photons trapped in superconductors, vibrations in nanoscale systems, or even impurities in diamond. In their lab, they make qubits using the spins of individual electrons trapped in silicon.

The Preciado Lab, led by Victor Preciado, focuses on modeling, analysis, and control of complex networked systems and engineering infrastructures, with applications in social networks, technological infrastructure, and biological systems. Since critical societal functions are increasingly dependent on complex networks, it is important to acquire a deeper understanding of the relationship between the structure and the dynamics of these systems.

The Radway Group, led by Robert Radway, focuses on building hardware systems leveraging heterogeneous memory, logic, and 3D integration for large benefits.

The Saeedi Bidokhti Group, led by Shirin Saeedi Bidokhti, focuses on information theory, networking, data compression and learning.

The Systems Architecture Integration Laboratory, led by Ben Lee, performs research in the broadly defined area of computer engineering. They design new hardware architectures for emerging platforms, spanning datacenters to mobile devices. Moreover, they propose new hardware management strategies to ensure service quality for diverse users in complex systems. In design and management, they navigate fundamental relationships between performance, energy-efficiency, and fairness.

The Vision Lab, led by Rene Vidal, spans a wide range of areas in biomedical imaging, computer vision, dynamics and controls, machine learning and robotics. In particular, they are interested in inference problems involving geometry, dynamics, photometry and statistics, such as (1) inferring models from images (image/video segmentation and structure from motion), static data (generalized PCA) or dynamic data (identification of hybrid systems), and (2) using such models to accomplish a complex mission (land a helicopter, pursue a team of evaders, follow a formation).

xLab, led by Rahul Mangharam, has committed themselves to research in the field of life critical systems. This is done by developing high performance and safe applications that are used in many different areas: Autonomous Vehicles, medical devices, Ai code designs. By using methods and techniques from the field of machine learning, control theory and formal methods they are investigating how life critical systems can be implemented in our every day life. They are proud to be part of the PRECISE Center and the GRASP Laboratory.