Papers
12
Total Citations
535
H-Index
10
About
Benjamin Jenett is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of robotics, materials science, and digital fabrication, whose work has fundamentally advanced how structures are designed, assembled, and reconfigured at scale. His research centers on discrete cellular lattice structures — often called "digital materials" — and the robotic systems capable of building with them. Jenett's most influential contribution, the Digital Morphing Wing (2016, 257 citations), demonstrated that lightweight, actively deformable aerospace structures could be assembled from modular composite building blocks, opening new possibilities for adaptive aircraft design. This landmark work laid the foundation for a broader research program exploring how simple mobile robots can autonomously construct, recognize, and reconfigure lattice-based structures, as detailed in his material-robot systems and relative robots frameworks. His investigations into self-replicating modular swarms and underwater continuum structures further demonstrate the scalability and versatility of this paradigm across environments, from orbital space assembly to deep-sea robotics. With cumulative citations exceeding 500 across his top publications, Jenett's contributions are reshaping engineering's approach to large-scale fabrication — replacing continuous manufacturing with precise, reversible, and robotically accessible digital assembly.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Material–Robot System for Assembly of Discrete Cellular Structures75 citations · 2019
- 3Self-replicating hierarchical modular robotic swarms49 citations · 2022
- 4Macrofabrication with Digital Materials: Robotic Assembly33 citations · 2015
- 5
- 6
- 7Geometry Systems for Lattice-Based Reconfigurable Space Structures16 citations · 2019
- 8
- 9Relative Robots: Scaling Automated Assembly of Discrete Cellular Lattices14 citations · 2016
- 10A mobile robot for locomotion through a 3D periodic lattice environment12 citations · 2017