Magnetic Soft Matter for Robotics
Annual Conference 1

4-5 September 2025, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Program

THURSDAY September 4^th 2025

MORNING SESSION
	Title	Speaker
9:00-9:10	Opening remarks	Irena Drevenšek Olenik
9:20-9:40	Invited 1: (20 min+10min discussion) Viscoelasticity of magnetorheological fluids: from particle simulations to continuum models	Tilen Potisk (in person) National Institute of Chemistry Ljubljana
9:40-10:00	Regular 1: (15min+5min discussion) Persistent wetting ridges on magnetoactive elastomers	Raphael Kriegl (in person) OTH Regensburg
10:00-10:20	Regular 2: (15min+5min discussion) Magnetic nanomaterials for biomedical, catalytic and sensing applications	Darko Makovec (in person) J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana
10:20-10:50	Coffee break
10:50-11:20	Invited 2: (20min +10min discussion) Magnetoactive elastomers (MAEs): ferromagnet particles trapped inside a polymer matrix. Mesoscopic view on the macroscopic behavior	Yuriy L. Raikher (in person) Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics UB RAS, Perm, Ural Federal University
11:20-11:40	Regular 3: (15min+5min discussion) Functional morphology and biomechanics	Stanislav Gorb (in person) Kiel University
11:40-12:00	Regular 4: (15min+5min discussion) Transport of materials by magnetoactive surfaces	Irena Drevenšek (in person) Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana
12:00-15:00	Lunch break, individual discussions

AFTERNOON SESSION
15:00-16:30	Invited 3: (20min+10min discussion) Use of soft materials in robotic actuation and cognition	Roman Kamnik (in person) Robolab, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
16:30-16:50	Regular 5: (15min+5min discussion) Computer simulation approaches for modelling magneto-elastic coupling	Sofia Kantorovich (in person) Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna
16:50-17:10	Regular 6: (15min+5min discussion) Embodied Intelligence in soft robotics: from morphological to neural computation	Poramate Manoonpong (in person) University of Southern Denmark, Odense
17:10-17:30	Regular 7: (15min+5min discussion) Harnessing mechanical nonlinearities for functional soft robotic systems	Matteo Cianchetti (in person) Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa
17:30-19:00	Poster session
DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM
20:00	Conference dinner

FRIDAY September 5^th 2025

MORNING SESSION
9:00-9:30	Invited 4: (20min +10min discussion) Limbless crawling soft robots	Ahmad Rafsanjani Abbasi (in person) SDU Soft Robotics, University of Southern Denmark
9:30-9:50	Regular 8: (15min+5min discussion) Robotic hands for prosthetics and industrial automation	Francesco Clemente (in person) Prensilia SRL, Pontedera
9:50-10:10	Regular 9: (15min+5min discussion) The modular design system for universal gripping	Alexey Stepanyuk (in person) WegaRD GmbH, Hamburg
10:10-10:40	Coffee break
10:40-11:10	Invited 5: (20min +10min discussion) Robot learning for adaptive robots	Aleš Ude (in person) Dept. of Automatics, Biocybernetics, and Robotics, J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana
11:10-11:30	Regular 10: (15min+5min discussion) Ferromagnetic fluids from barium hexaferrite nanoplatelets	Darja Lisjak (in person) J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana
11:30-11:50	Regular 11: (15min+5min discussion)	External (in person)
11:50-12:00	Closing remarks
12:00	Lunch break, individual discussions, visits to the labs, etc.

VENUE

Local organizing committee:

Irena DREVENŠEK OLENIK, Gašper KOKOT, Izidor STRAUS, Arne GELDOF

Confirmed invited speakers:

• Ahmad Rafsanjani Abbasi, SDU Soft Robotics, University of Southern Denmark
• Yuriy L. Raikher, Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics UB RAS, Perm, Ural Federal University
• Roman Kamnik, Robolab, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
• Aleš Ude, Dept. of Automatics, Biocybernetics, and Robotics, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana
• Tilen Potisk, National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana