Related papers: 3D Modular Microrobots: Micro-Origami Cubes with I…
True microrobots, in contrast with externally controlled microparticles, must harvest or carry their own source of energy, as well as their own (preferably programmable) microcontroller of actuators for locomotion, using information…
Modular small-scale robots offer the potential for on-demand assembly and disassembly, enabling task-specific adaptation in dynamic and constrained environments. However, existing modular magnetic platforms often depend on workspace…
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…
Semiconductor microelectronics are emerging as a powerful tool for building smart, autonomous robots too small to see with the naked eye. Yet a number of existing microrobot platforms, despite significant advantages in speed, robustness,…
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…
Wireless millimeter-scale origami robots that can locomote in narrow spaces and morph their shapes have recently been explored with great potential for biomedical applications. Existing millimeter-scale origami devices usually require…
This paper presents a low-cost, centralized modular underwater robot platform, ModCube, which can be used to study swarm coordination for a wide range of tasks in underwater environments. A ModCube structure consists of multiple ModCube…
Natural systems integrate the work of many sub-units (cells) toward a large-scale unified goal (morphological and behavioral), which can counteract the effects of unexpected experiences, damage, or simply changes in tasks demands. In this…
Active systems contain self-propelled particles and can spontaneously self-organize into patterns making them attractive candidates for the self-assembly of smart soft materials. One key limitation of our present understanding of these…
Three-dimensional self-assembly of lithographically patterned ultrathin films opens a path to manufacture microelectronic architectures with functionalities and integration schemes not accessible by conventional two-dimensional…
Magnetic rolling microrobots enable gentle manipulation in confined microfluidic environments, yet autonomy for contact-rich behaviors such as cell pushing and multi-target assembly remains difficult to develop and evaluate reproducibly. We…
Lablets are autonomous microscopic particles with programmable CMOS electronics that can control electrokinetic phenomena and electrochemical reactions in solution via actuator and sensor microelectrodes. In this paper, we describe the…
Microrobots show great potential in biomedical applications such as drug delivery and cell manipulations. However, current microrobots are mostly fabricated as a single entity and type and the tasks they can perform are limited. In this…
Many soft-body organisms found in nature flourish underwater. Similarly, soft robots are potentially well-suited for underwater environments partly because the problematic effects of gravity, friction, and harmonic oscillations are less…
This paper presents MicroRoboScope, a portable, compact, and versatile microrobotic experimentation platform designed for real-time, closed-loop control of both magnetic and acoustic microrobots. The system integrates an embedded computer,…
Electromagnetic systems have been used extensively for the control magnetically actuated objects, such as in microrheology and microrobotics research. Therefore, optimizing the design of such systems is highly desired. Some of the features…
The advantage of modular self-reconfigurable robot systems is their flexibility, but this advantage can only be realized if appropriate configurations (shapes) and behaviors (controlling programs) can be selected for a given task. In this…
Modular soft robots combine the strengths of two traditionally separate areas of robotics. As modular robots, they can show robustness to individual failure and reconfigurability; as soft robots, they can deform and undergo large shape…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
We introduce a system of light driven microscopic autonomous moving particles that move on a flat surface. The design is simple, yet effective: Micrometer sized objects with wedge shape are produced by photopolymerization, they are covered…