Soft Kinetic

ardian@ini.uzh.ch

Robotics, soft materials, and biomechanics for agile, lifelike movement in complex environments

We develop bio-inspired and soft robotic systems leveraging the embodied intelligence of bodies internal dynamics and control to achieve robust, contact-rich movement through complex environments with active materials and embedded sensing. Our research combines experimental robotics, biomechanics, materials science, and dynamical systems to understand and engineer locomotion in swimming, climbing, landing, and high-energy transitions.

Rather than treating morphology as passive hardware, our work asks how bodies can compute, stabilize, absorb impact, exploit contact, and reduce control burden. This approach connects soft robotics, robophysical modelling, mechanical intelligence, and bio-inspired design.

is an inter professional group leveraging robotics and physical AI.

In this spirit, Prof. Dr. Jusufi hosted a Soft Robotics Symposium at PPS38 that was attended by leading roboticists, and has chaired sessions in several conferences including IEEE RoboSoft, Robotics Science and Systems, AMAM, as well as ICRA workshop presentations.

Ardian moderated Panel Discussion - Soft Robotics and AI - with Profs. Oliver Brock, Koh Hosoda, Rebecca Kraemer-Bottiglia - 12th Intl. Conf. Adaptive Motion Animals & Machines

Prof. Dr. Ardian Jusufi graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where most of his formal training took place. He moved to the University of Cambridge where he was a Queens’ College Postdoctoral Research Associate. Subsequently, Ardian was a research scientist at Harvard University, under the supervision of Prof. Wood of the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically-Inspired Engineering. He was a lecturer at Sydney’s Robotics Institute before being appointed an independent Max Planck Research Group Leader [~Associate Professor] at the MPI for Intelligent Systems at 2018, where he was employed through 2023. He then founded the Soft Kinetic Group at the Engineering Sciences Department at the Swiss Federal Labs for Materials Science and Technology while he was also an Affiliated Group Leader at the University of Zurich Institute for NeuroInformatics INI, where he has since joined full time. Ardian has also been an Hon. Associate Professor of Macquarie University Sydney since 2022.

Speakers of the Soft Robotics Symposium chaired by Ardian at 38th Intl. Conf. PPS38 incl. leaders Robert Shepherd, Yong Lae Park, Cecilia Laschi, ⁦Eduardo Milana⁩, among many others.

We have open positions! Please contact the PI: ardian.jusufi@uzh.ch

Prof. Dr. Ardian Jusufi | Institute for NeuroInformatics University of Zurich

Head of Soft Kinetic Group, Engineering Sciences Department | Swiss Federal Labs for Materials Science and Technology Empa

formerly Independent Max Planck Research Group Leader at the MPI for Intelligent Systems
and Associate Faculty Member at ETH Center for Learning Systems

Hon. Associate Professor | Macquarie University