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With the emergence of new flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle (FWMAV) designs, a need for extensive and advanced mission capabilities arises. FWMAVs try to adapt and emulate the flight features of birds and flying insects. While current…
Soft-actuated insect-scale micro aerial vehicles (IMAVs) pose unique challenges for designing robust and computationally efficient controllers. At the millimeter scale, fast robot dynamics ($\sim$ms), together with system delay, model…
Wheeled ground robots are limited from exploring extreme environments such as caves, lava tubes and skylights. Small robots that utilize unconventional mobility through hopping, flying and rolling can overcome many roughness limitations and…
This paper presents the concept of a tethered variable inertial attitude control mechanism for a modular jumping-limbed robot designed for planetary exploration in low-gravity environments. The system, named SPLITTER, comprises two sub-10…
We investigate theoretically the ballistic motion of small legged insects and legless larvae after a jump. Notwithstanding their completely different morphologies and jumping strategies, these legged and legless animals have convergently…
For several years, high development and production costs of humanoid robots restricted researchers interested in working in the field. To overcome this problem, several research groups have opted to work with simulated or smaller robots,…
There is still a long way to go before artificial mini robots are really used for search and rescue missions in disaster-hit areas due to hindrance in power consumption, computation load of the locomotion, and obstacle-avoidance system.…
Quadruped robots are becoming increasingly essential for various applications, including industrial inspection and catastrophe search and rescue. These scenarios require robots to possess enhanced agility and obstacle-navigation skills.…
Quadrupedal robots are conquering various indoor and outdoor applications due to their ability to navigate challenging uneven terrains. Exteroceptive information greatly enhances this capability since perceiving their surroundings allows…
We demonstrate laser-plasma acceleration of high charge electron beams to the ~10 MeV scale using ultrashort laser pulses with as little energy as 10 mJ. This result is made possible by an extremely dense and thin hydrogen gas jet. Total…
Mobile robots are increasingly utilized in agriculture to automate labor-intensive tasks such as weeding, sowing, harvesting and soil analysis. Recently, agricultural robots have been developed to detect and remove weeds using mechanical…
Space exploration is of paramount importance to advancing fundamental science and providing global services, such as navigation and communications. However, today's space missions are hindered by limitations of existing propulsion…
We present SpaceHopper, a three-legged, small-scale robot designed for future mobile exploration of asteroids and moons. The robot weighs 5.2kg and has a body size of 245mm while using space-qualifiable components. Furthermore,…
The centimeter-scale cyborg insects have a potential advantage for application in narrow environments where humans cannot operate. To realize such tasks, researchers have developed a small printed-circuit-board (PCB) which an insect can…
Flying insects can perform rapid, sophisticated maneuvers like backflips, sharp banked turns, and in-flight collision recovery. To emulate these in aerial robots weighing less than a gram, known as flying insect robots (FIRs), a fast and…
We present a new millimeter-scale bimorph actuator for microrobotic applications, driven by feedforward controlled shape-memory alloy (SMA) wires. The device weighs 10 mg, measures 14 mm in length, and occupies a volume of 4.8 mm3, which…
Achieving short-distance flight helps improve the efficiency of humanoid robots moving in complex environments (e.g., crossing large obstacles or reaching high places) for rapid emergency missions. This study proposes a design of a flying…
We present a new open-source torque-controlled legged robot system, with a low-cost and low-complexity actuator module at its core. It consists of a high-torque brushless DC motor and a low-gear-ratio transmission suitable for impedance and…
We introduce Bee$^+$, a 95-mg four-winged microrobot with improved controllability and open-loop-response characteristics with respect to those exhibited by state-of-the-art two-winged microrobots with the same size and similar weight…
Rotation in micro/nanoscale provides extensive applications in mechanical actuation$^{1, 2}$, cargo delivery$^{3, 4}$, and biomolecule manipulation$^{5, 6}$. Light can be used to induce a mechanical rotation remotely, instantly and…