Concept

Microbotics

Related publications (28)

Small-scale robotic devices for medical interventions in the brain

Mahmut Selman Sakar, Lorenzo Francesco John Noseda

This article summarizes the recent advancements in the design, fabrication, and control of microrobotic devices for the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. With a focus on diverse actuation methods, we discuss how advancements in materials science ...

2024

Educational Soft Underwater Robot with an Electromagnetic Actuation

Robert Marius Hennig

As demonstrated by the Soft Robotics Toolkit Platform, compliant robotics pose an exciting educational opportunity. Underwater robotics using soft undulating fins is an expansive research topic with applications such as exploration of underwater life or re ...

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc2024

Online Multicontact Receding Horizon Planning via Value Function Approximation

Sylvain Calinon, Teguh Santoso Lembono

Planning multicontact motions in a receding horizon fashion requires a value function to guide the planning with respect to the future, e.g., building momentum to traverse large obstacles. Traditionally, the value function is approximated by computing traj ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

A Biohybrid Superorganism - Investigating honeybees' collective behaviors via interactive robotics

Rafael Botner Barmak

Social insects, such as ants, termites, and honeybees, have evolved sophisticated societies where the collaborative efforts of "simple" individuals can lead to the emergence of complex dynamics. The reliance of each organism on the collective is so great t ...

EPFL2024

Control and Morphology Optimization of Passive Asymmetric Structures for Robotic Swimming

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Nana Obayashi

Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example when creating bi ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2023

Resilient drones with morphing wings

Charalampos Vourtsis

Winged aerial robots and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) commonly referred to as winged drones and drones, are increasingly used in a wide range of professional and non-professional applications today, spanning from civilian to military. As a result, they ...

EPFL2023

A robotic honeycomb for interaction with a honeybee colony

Francesco Mondada, Rafael Botner Barmak, Robert Matthew Mills

Robotic technologies have shown the capability to interact with living organisms and even to form integrated mixed societies composed of living and artificial agents. Biocompatible robots, incorporating sensing and actuation capable of generating and respo ...

2023

The effects of kinematics, flexibility, and planform on the vortex formation and aerodynamic performance of flapping wing flight

Alexander Gehrke

In this thesis, the aerodynamic challenges in flapping wing flight are addressed. In particular, the effects of different wing kinematics, flexibilities, and planforms on the the leading edge vortex development and aerodynamic performance are investigated. ...

EPFL2023

Dynamic control of high-voltage actuator arrays by light-pattern projection on photoconductive switches

Herbert Shea, Amir Firouzeh, Edouard Franck Vincent Gustave Leroy

The ability to control high-voltage actuator arrays relies, to date, on expensive microelectronic processes or on individual wiring of each actuator to a single off-chip high-voltage switch. Here we present an alternative approach that uses on-chip photoco ...

SPRINGERNATURE2023

How ornithopters can perch autonomously on a branch

Raphael Zufferey

Flapping wings produce lift and thrust in bio-inspired aerial robots, leading to quiet, safe and efficient flight. However, to extend their application scope, these robots must perch and land, a feat widely demonstrated by birds. Despite recent progress, f ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Synthesis of Novel Integrated Actuators Powered by Shape Memory Alloys

Sean Thomas

In the modern age of miniaturisation, Smart Materials, a type of material that reacts mechanically to a certain stimulus, have become an integral part of this revolution. Among these materials, Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which have the highest volumetric ...

EPFL2022

Locally active globally stable dynamical systems: Theory, learning, and experiments

Aude Billard, Nadia Barbara Figueroa Fernandez

State-dependent dynamical systems (DSs) offer adaptivity, reactivity, and robustness to perturbations in motion planning and physical human-robot interaction tasks. Learning DS-based motion plans from non-linear reference trajectories is an active research ...

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD2022

Tales from a Robotic World. How Intelligent Machines Will Shape Our Future

Dario Floreano, Nicola Nosengo

Stories from the future of intelligent machines—from rescue drones to robot spouses—and accounts of cutting-edge research that could make it all possible. Tech prognosticators promised us robots—autonomous humanoids that could carry out any number of tasks ...

MIT Press2022

To tread or not to tread: comparison between water treading and conventional flapping wing kinematics

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke, Swathi Badala Krishna

Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back-and-forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the leading edge vo ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Wireless Electrohydrodynamic Actuators for Propulsion and Positioning of Miniaturized Floating Robots

Vito Cacucciolo

Autonomous soft robots require compact actuators generating large strokes and high forces. Electro-fluidic actuators are especially promising, they combine the advantages of electroactive polymers (low-power consumption, fast response, and electrical power ...

WILEY2021

Development of soft microscopic implants and acoustically-powered machines for biomedical applications

Murat Kaynak

The development of miniaturized machines that can actively cross barriers, navigate through heterogeneous materials and access remote sites can revolutionize environmental inspection and targeted therapy. Seminal work demonstrated the feasibility of follow ...

EPFL2021

Predictive control of aerial swarms in cluttered environments

Dario Floreano, Fabrizio Schiano, Enrica Soria

Classical models of aerial swarms often describe global coordinated motion as the combination of local interactions that happen at the individual level. Mathematically, these interactions are represented with potential fields. Despite their explanatory suc ...

2021

Passive Perching with Energy Storage for Winged Aerial Robots

Dario Floreano, Yegor Piskarev, William John Stewart

Perching in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offers the possibility of extending the range of aerial robots beyond the limits of their batteries. It has been a topic of intense study for multirotor UAVs. Perching in winged UAVs is harder because a kinetic e ...

2021

Wireless soft microscale actuators and robotic devices to study mechanobiology

Raquel Filipa Penacho Parreira

Tissues morphogenesis and homeostasis involve the spatiotemporal regulation of mechanics at multiple scales. Characterization of mechanical properties of biological systems as well as investigating the effects of mechanical forces on biological function ar ...

EPFL2021

Comparative dynamic flight stability of insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles in hover: Longitudinal and lateral motions

Hoang Vu Phan

In this paper, we compare the characteristics of hovering stability for two insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FW-MAVs) with different strategies to generate control moments for the longitudinal and lateral attitude controls. The two robots ...

2021