Dr. Hugo Oliveira

Projects

My research focuses on developing mechanical metamaterials that can be integrated with soft, conformable and flexible electronics and sensors. I am mainly interested in the design and manufacturing of robotic systems that can safely, efficiently and nimbly interact with the environment at different scales. Another goal is to develop Physical Intelligence via multifunctional materials and structures with distributed actuation, sensing, control and energy.

First supervisor

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Edoardo Milana

Publications

• Meta-Ori: monolithic meta-origami for nonlinear inflatable soft actuators*
  Oliveira, H., Li, X., Frey, J. & Milana, E. (2025). Meta-Ori: monolithic meta-origami for nonlinear inflatable soft actuators. 2025 IEEE 8th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), 1-6, doi: 10.1109/RoboSoft63089.2025.11020947
• Proprioceptive multistable mechanical metamaterial via soft capacitive sensors*
  de Souza Oliveira, H., Khaanghah, N. S., Oetelmans, M., Münzenrieder, N., & Milana, E. (2025). Proprioceptive multistable mechanical metamaterial via soft capacitive sensors arXiv, 2503.23389. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2503.23389
• Mechanical metamaterial sensors: From design to applications*
  de Souza Oliveira, H., Saeedzadeh Khaanghah, N., Elli, G., Petti, L., Cantarella, G., Milana, E., & Münzenrieder, N. (2025). Mechanical metamaterial sensors: From design to applications. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 58(13), 133002. doi: 10.1088/1361-6463/adade5
• A bistable pneumatic actuator based on flexible metamaterials*
  Navale, A., Gupta, R., de Souza Oliveira, H., Slesarenko, V., & Milana, E. (2024). A bistable pneumatic actuator based on flexible metamaterials. ACTUATOR 2024; International Conference and Exhibition on New Actuator Systems and Applications, 245–248.