Selected as the Student Representative of the IEEE-RAS Soft Robotics Technical Committee.
Benhui Dai
About
Benhui Dai is currently a PhD student at CREATE Lab, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, under the supervision of Prof. Josie Hughes.
He was a visiting researcher (2026) at Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), University of Bristol, working with Prof. Jonathan Rossiter. He received a master's degree in biosystems engineering from Zhejiang University (ZJU), China, and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.
His research focuses on developing novel design paradigms for morphological structures, multi-modal sensing devices and sensory-motor control that exploit their physicality and interactions with the environment.
Research interests:
- Soft robotics and materials
- Multi-modal sensing tools
- Bio-inspired robots
- Food & agricultural robots
- Robophysics & intelligence
News
Recent awards, papers, and community activities.
Co-organized the Embodied Intelligence Conference (EI 2026).
Received the Best Poster Award at the “Touching Tomorrow” workshop at IROS 2025.
Our paper on oe-skin was published in npj Flexible Electronics.
Our Elephant Robot paper was published in Science Advances as a cover paper.
We organized a soft robotics workshop at IROS 2025 in Hangzhou.
Our BabyBot paper was published in npj Robotics as a heading paper.
Received the Best Poster Award at the “Soft Robotics Mimicking Human Body for Medical Applications” workshop at IEEE RoboSoft 2025.
Research topics
Research directions I work across. Read more →
Soft robotics and materials
Meta-structures, soft actuators, and musculoskeletal robots with programmable morphology.
Multi-modal sensing tools
Tactile and biosensors that extend robotic perception beyond human and natural sensing.
Bio-inspired robots
Translate principles from biology, anatomy, and physiology into integrated robotic systems.
Food & agricultural robots
Masticatory robots and sensing systems for food processing and agricultural inspection.
Robophysics & intelligence
Embodied intelligence emerging from physical bodies, materials, and control.
Open to all
New questions, cross-disciplinary collaborations.
CONTACT
Let's build something
interesting!
I am always happy to discuss soft robotics, sensing, and new collaborations.
benhui.dai@epfl.ch