0:00:00.764,0:00:04.209
My students and I[br]work on very tiny robots.

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Now, you can think of these[br]as robotic versions

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of something that you're all[br]very familiar with: an ant.

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Right? We all know that ants[br]and other insects at this size scale

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can do some pretty incredible things.

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We've all seen a group of ants,[br]or some version of that,

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carting off your potato chip at a picnic,[br]for example, right?

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But what are the real challenges[br]of engineering these ants?

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Well, first of all, how do we get[br]the capabilities of an ant

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in a robot at the same size scale?

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Well, first we need to figure out[br]how to make them move

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when they're so small.

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We need mechanisms like legs[br]and efficient motors

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in order to support that locomotion,

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and we need the sensors,[br]power, and control

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in order to pull everything together[br]in a semi-intelligent ant robot. Right?

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And finally, to make[br]these things really functional,

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we want a lot of them working together

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in order to do bigger things.

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So I'll start with mobility.

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Insects move around amazingly well.

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This video is from UC Berkeley.

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It shows a cockroach moving[br]over incredibly rough terrain

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without tipping over,

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and it's able to do this because its legs

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are a combination of rigid materials,

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which is what we traditionally[br]use to make robots,

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and soft materials.

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Jumping is another really interesting way[br]to get around when you're very small.

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So these insects store energy in a spring

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and release that really quickly[br]to get the high power they need

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to jump out of water, for example.

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So one of the big[br]contributions from my lab

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has been to combine[br]rigid and soft materials

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in very, very small mechanisms.

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So this jumping mechanism[br]is about 4 millimeters on a side,

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so really tiny.

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The hard material here is silicon,[br]and the soft material is silicone rubber.

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And the basic idea is that[br]we're going to compress this,

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store energy in the springs,[br]and then release it to jump.

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So there's no motors[br]on board this right now, no power.

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This is actuated with a method[br]that we call in my lab

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"graduate student with tweezers."

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So what you'll see in the next video

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is this guy doing[br]amazingly well for its jumps.

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So this is Aaron, the graduate student[br]in question, with the tweezers,

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and what you see is[br]this 4-millimeter-sized mechanism

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jumping almost 40 centimeters high.

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That's almost a hundred times[br]its own length. Right?

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And it survives, bounces on the table,

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it's incredibly robust, and of course[br]survives quite well until we lose it

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because it's very tiny.

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Ultimately, though, we want[br]to add motors to this too,

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and we have students in the lab[br]working on millimeter-sized motors

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to eventually integrate onto[br]small, autonomous robots.

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But in order to look at mobility and[br]locomotion at this size scale to start,

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we're cheating and using magnets.

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So this shows what would eventually[br]be part of a micro robot leg,

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and you can see the silicone rubber joints

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and there's an embedded magnet[br]that's being moved around

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by an external magnetic field.

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So this leads to the robot[br]that I showed you earlier.

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The really interesting thing[br]that this robot can help us figure out

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is how insects move at this scale.

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We have a really good model[br]for how everything

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from a cockroach up to an elephant moves.

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We all move in this kind of bouncy way

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when we run.

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But when I'm really small, my feet,

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the forces between my feet and the ground,

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are going to affect my locomotion[br]a lot more than my mass,

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which is what causes that bouncy motion.

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So this guy doesn't work quite yet,

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but we do have slightly larger versions

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that do run around.

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So this is about a centimeter cube,

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a centimeter on a side, so very tiny,

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and we've gotten this to run[br]about 10 body lengths per second,

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so 10 centimeters per second.

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It's pretty quick for a little, small guy,

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and that's really only limited by our test setup.

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This gives you some idea[br]of how it works right now.

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We can also make 3D-printed[br]versions of this

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that can climb over obstacles

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a lot like the cockroach[br]that you saw earlier.

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But ultimately we want to add[br]everything onboard the robot. Right?

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We want sensing, power, control,[br]actuation all together,

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and not everything[br]needs to be bio-inspired.

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So this robot's about the size[br]of a tic-tac, right?

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And in this case, instead of magnets[br]or muscles to move this around,

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we use rockets.

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So this is a micro-fabricated[br]energetic material,

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and we can create tiny pixels of this,

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and we can put one of these pixels

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on the belly of this robot,

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and this robot, then, is going to jump

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when it senses an increase in light.

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So the next video is one of my favorites.

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So you have this 300 milligram robot

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jumping about eight centimeters[br]in the air. Right?

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It's only four by four[br]by seven millimeters in size.

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And you'll see a big flash[br]at the beginning

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when the energetic is set off,

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and the robot tumbling through the air.

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So there was that big flash,

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and you can see the robot[br]jumping up through the air.

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So there's no tethers on this,[br]no wires connecting to this.

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Everything is onboard,[br]and it jumped in response

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to the student just flicking on[br]a desk lamp next to it.

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So I think you can imagine[br]all the kind of cool things

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that we could do with robots

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that can run and crawl[br]and jump and role at this size scale.

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Right? Imagine the rubble that you get

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after a natural disaster[br]like an earthquake.

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Imagine these small robots[br]running through that rubble

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to look for survivors.

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Or imagine a lot of small robots

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running around a bridge

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in order to inspect it[br]and make sure it's safe

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so you don't get collapses[br]like this that happened

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outside of Minneapolis in 2007.

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Or just imagine what you could do

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if you had robots that could[br]swim through your blood.

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Right? "Fantastic Voyage," Isaac Asimov.

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Or they could operate without having[br]to cut you open in the first place.

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Or we could radically change[br]the way we build things

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if we have our tiny robots

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work the same way that termites do.

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And they build these incredible[br]eight-meter-high mounds,

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effectively well-ventilated[br]apartment buildings for other termites

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in Africa and Australia.

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So I think I've given you[br]some of the possibilities

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of what we can do with these small robots,

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and hopefully we've made[br]some advances so far,

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but there's still a long way to go,

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and hopefully some of you[br]can contribute to that destination.

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Thanks very much.

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(Applause)