I am working on the EU project OCTOPUS (OCTOPUS IP, FP7-ICT 2007.8.5, FET Proactive, Embodied Intelligence, Grant agreement no. 231608, 2009-2013), with its full name "Novel Design Principles and Technologies for a New Generation of High Dexterity Soft-bodied Robots Inspired by the Morphology and Behaviour of the Octopus". This project aims to study the underlying principles of the octopus motor control abilities by building a totally soft-bodied robot.

Student projects available, for detailed information, please contact me or Dr. Nakajima by email.

Journals

• Li, T., Nakajima, K., Kuba, M., Gutnick, T., Hochner, B., and Pfeifer, R. (2011). From the octopus to soft robots control: an octopus inspired behavior control architecture for soft robots, Vie et Milieu/ Life and Environment. (accepted for publication).

Conferences

• Li T., Nakajima K., Cianchetti M. , Laschi C., and Pfeifer R. (2012) Behavior Switching by Using Reservoir Computing for a Soft Robotic Arm, the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2012) (accepted)
• Nakajima K., Li T., Sumioka H., Cianchetti M., and Pfeifer R. (2011) Information Theoretic Analysis on a Soft Robotic Arm Inspired by the Octopus, In Proceedings of 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (IEEE-ROBIO 2011), pp. 110 - 117.

• Nakajima K., Li T.,and Pfeifer R. (2011) Timing and Behavioral Efficiency in Controlling a Soft Body: A Case Study in Octopus Reaching Behavior, In Proceedings of the 2th International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC2011), pp. 132- 134. 

• Li T., Nakajima K., and Cianchetti M. (2011) Finding Structure in Deadtime, In Proceedings of the 2th International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC2011), pp. 47- 49. 
• Nakajima K., Li T., Kuppuswamy N., Pfeifer R. (2011) Harnessing the Dynamics of a Soft Body with 'Timing': Octopus Inspired Control via Recurrent Neural Networks, In Proceedings of IEEE 15th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2011), pp. 277 - 284. 
• Nakajima K., Li T., Kuppuswamy N., Pfeifer R. (2011) Biologically Inspired Control of a Simulated Octopus Arm via Recurrent Neural Networks, In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference Companion on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO 2011), ACM, pp. 21-22. 
• Nakajima K., Li T., Kuppuswamy N., Pfeifer R. (2011) How to Harness the Dynamics of Soft Body: Timing Based Control of a Simulated Octopus Arm via Recurrent Neural Networks, Procedia Computer Science 7(0), pp. 246-247.
• Kuppuswamy N., Li T., Nakajima K., Cianchetti M., and Pferifer R. (2009) A Biologically Inspired Approach to the Control of Octopus-like Soft Robot Arms, J Mol Neurosci 39 (Suppl 1), s65. 

Before joining the AI Lab as a Ph.D. student (Doctorant) in Feb. 2009, I was working on a lower limb rehabilitation robotics project in the Robotics Research Center of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from Dec. 2007 to Jan. 2009. I obtained my bachelor degree in 2005 and master degree in 2007 from Huazhong University of Science & Technology and Zhejiang University, respectively. Both are in mechanical engineering.