1
00:00:00,564 --> 00:00:04,209
My students and I
work on very tiny robots.

2
00:00:04,209 --> 00:00:06,346
Now, you can think of these
as robotic versions

3
00:00:06,346 --> 00:00:10,016
of something that you're all
very familiar with: an ant.

4
00:00:10,016 --> 00:00:12,776
Right? We all know that ants
and other insects at this size scale

5
00:00:12,776 --> 00:00:15,012
can do some pretty incredible things.

6
00:00:15,012 --> 00:00:18,197
We've all seen a group of ants,
or some version of that,

7
00:00:18,197 --> 00:00:22,467
carting off your potato chip at a picnic,
for example, right?

8
00:00:22,467 --> 00:00:25,910
But what are the real challenges
of engineering these ants?

9
00:00:25,910 --> 00:00:30,111
Well, first of all, how do we get
the capabilities of an ant

10
00:00:30,111 --> 00:00:32,049
in a robot at the same size scale?

11
00:00:32,049 --> 00:00:34,543
Well, first we need to figure out
how to make them move

12
00:00:34,543 --> 00:00:36,023
when they're so small.

13
00:00:36,023 --> 00:00:37,993
We need mechanisms like legs
and efficient motors

14
00:00:37,993 --> 00:00:40,072
in order to support that locomotion,

15
00:00:40,072 --> 00:00:42,563
and we need the sensors,
power, and control

16
00:00:42,563 --> 00:00:46,525
in order to pull everything together
in a semi-intelligent ant robot. Right?

17
00:00:46,525 --> 00:00:49,071
And finally, to make
these things really functional,

18
00:00:49,071 --> 00:00:53,019
we want a lot of them working together
in order to do bigger things.

19
00:00:53,019 --> 00:00:55,710
So I'll start with mobility.

20
00:00:55,710 --> 00:00:58,871
Insects move around amazingly well.

21
00:00:58,871 --> 00:01:00,559
This video is from UC Berkeley.

22
00:01:00,559 --> 00:01:03,342
It shows a cockroach moving
over incredibly rough terrain

23
00:01:03,342 --> 00:01:05,195
without tipping over,

24
00:01:05,195 --> 00:01:07,502
and it's able to do this because its legs

25
00:01:07,502 --> 00:01:09,236
are a combination of rigid materials,

26
00:01:09,236 --> 00:01:11,475
which is what we traditionally
use to make robots,

27
00:01:11,475 --> 00:01:13,144
and soft materials.

28
00:01:14,374 --> 00:01:18,201
Jumping is another really interesting way
to get around when you're very small.

29
00:01:18,201 --> 00:01:21,104
So these insects store energy in a spring

30
00:01:21,104 --> 00:01:23,440
and release that really quickly
to get the high power they need

31
00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:26,281
to jump out of water, for example.

32
00:01:26,281 --> 00:01:29,403
So one of the big
contributions from my lab

33
00:01:29,403 --> 00:01:32,153
has been to combine
rigid and soft materials

34
00:01:32,153 --> 00:01:34,367
in very, very small mechanisms.

35
00:01:34,367 --> 00:01:37,532
So this jumping mechanism
is about 4 millimeters on a side,

36
00:01:37,532 --> 00:01:39,220
so really tiny.

37
00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:43,058
The hard material here is silicon,
and the soft material is silicone rubber.

38
00:01:43,058 --> 00:01:46,023
And the basic idea is that
we're going to compress this,

39
00:01:46,023 --> 00:01:48,654
store energy in the springs,
and then release it to jump.

40
00:01:48,654 --> 00:01:52,037
So there's no motors
on board this right now, no power.

41
00:01:52,037 --> 00:01:54,800
This is actuated with a method
that we call in my lab

42
00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:57,472
"graduate student with tweezers."

43
00:01:57,472 --> 00:01:59,306
So what you'll see in the next video

44
00:01:59,306 --> 00:02:02,573
is this guy doing
amazingly well for its jumps.

45
00:02:02,573 --> 00:02:06,007
So this is Aaron, the graduate student
in question, with the tweezers,

46
00:02:06,007 --> 00:02:08,410
and what you see is
this 4-millimeter-sized mechanism

47
00:02:08,410 --> 00:02:10,841
jumping almost 40 centimeters high.

48
00:02:10,841 --> 00:02:13,265
That's almost a hundred times
its own length. Right?

49
00:02:13,265 --> 00:02:15,221
And it survives, bounces on the table,

50
00:02:15,221 --> 00:02:18,515
it's incredibly robust, and of course
survives quite well until we lose it

51
00:02:18,515 --> 00:02:21,361
because it's very tiny.

52
00:02:21,361 --> 00:02:24,330
Ultimately, though, we want
to add motors to this too,

53
00:02:24,330 --> 00:02:26,726
and we have students in the lab
working on millimeter-sized motors

54
00:02:26,726 --> 00:02:30,686
to eventually integrate onto
small, autonomous robots.

55
00:02:30,686 --> 00:02:34,267
But in order to look at mobility and
locomotion at this size scale to start,

56
00:02:34,267 --> 00:02:36,241
we're cheating and using magnets.

57
00:02:36,241 --> 00:02:39,317
So this shows what would eventually
be part of a micro robot leg,

58
00:02:39,317 --> 00:02:41,334
and you can see the silicone rubber joints

59
00:02:41,334 --> 00:02:43,963
and there's an embedded magnet
that's being moved around

60
00:02:43,963 --> 00:02:46,266
by an external magnetic field.

61
00:02:46,266 --> 00:02:48,949
So this leads to the robot
that I showed you earlier.

62
00:02:49,959 --> 00:02:53,110
The really interesting thing
that this robot can help us figure out

63
00:02:53,110 --> 00:02:55,117
is how insects move at this scale.

64
00:02:55,117 --> 00:02:57,342
We have a really good model
for how everything

65
00:02:57,342 --> 00:02:59,304
from a cockroach up to an elephant moves.

66
00:02:59,304 --> 00:03:01,118
We all move in this kind of bouncy way

67
00:03:01,118 --> 00:03:02,182
when we run.

68
00:03:02,182 --> 00:03:04,411
But when I'm really small, my feet,

69
00:03:04,411 --> 00:03:06,553
the forces between my feet and the ground,

70
00:03:06,553 --> 00:03:09,288
are going to affect my locomotion
a lot more than my mass,

71
00:03:09,288 --> 00:03:11,642
which is what causes that bouncy motion.

72
00:03:11,642 --> 00:03:13,317
So this guy doesn't work quite yet,

73
00:03:13,317 --> 00:03:15,192
but we do have slightly larger versions

74
00:03:15,192 --> 00:03:16,385
that do run around.

75
00:03:16,385 --> 00:03:20,277
So this is about a centimeter cube,
a centimeter on a side, so very tiny,

76
00:03:20,277 --> 00:03:23,199
and we've gotten this to run
about 10 body lengths per second,

77
00:03:23,199 --> 00:03:24,585
so 10 centimeters per second.

78
00:03:24,585 --> 00:03:26,598
It's pretty quick for a little, small guy,

79
00:03:26,598 --> 00:03:28,960
and that's really only limited 
by our test setup.

80
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:31,337
This gives you some idea
of how it works right now.

81
00:03:32,027 --> 00:03:34,191
We can also make 3D-printed
versions of this

82
00:03:34,191 --> 00:03:35,751
that can climb over obstacles

83
00:03:35,751 --> 00:03:39,280
a lot like the cockroach
that you saw earlier.

84
00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:42,166
But ultimately we want to add
everything onboard the robot. Right?

85
00:03:42,166 --> 00:03:45,859
We want sensing, power, control,
actuation all together,

86
00:03:45,859 --> 00:03:48,765
and not everything
needs to be bio-inspired.

87
00:03:48,765 --> 00:03:51,900
So this robot's about the size
of a tic-tac, right?

88
00:03:51,900 --> 00:03:55,849
And in this case, instead of magnets
or muscles to move this around,

89
00:03:55,849 --> 00:03:58,274
we use rockets.

90
00:03:58,274 --> 00:04:00,940
So this is a micro-fabricated
energetic material,

91
00:04:00,940 --> 00:04:03,539
and we can create tiny pixels of this,

92
00:04:03,539 --> 00:04:05,356
and we can put one of these pixels

93
00:04:05,356 --> 00:04:07,323
on the belly of this robot,

94
00:04:07,323 --> 00:04:09,552
and this robot, then, is going to jump

95
00:04:09,552 --> 00:04:11,705
when it senses an increase in light.

96
00:04:12,645 --> 00:04:14,618
So the next video is one of my favorites.

97
00:04:14,618 --> 00:04:17,658
So you have this 300 milligram robot

98
00:04:17,658 --> 00:04:20,064
jumping about eight centimeters
in the air. Right?

99
00:04:20,064 --> 00:04:22,974
It's only four by four
by seven millimeters in size.

100
00:04:22,974 --> 00:04:25,130
And you'll see a big flash
at the beginning

101
00:04:25,130 --> 00:04:26,622
when the energetic is set off,

102
00:04:26,622 --> 00:04:28,530
and the robot tumbling through the air.

103
00:04:28,530 --> 00:04:30,139
So there was that big flash,

104
00:04:30,139 --> 00:04:33,336
and you can see the robot
jumping up through the air.

105
00:04:33,336 --> 00:04:36,368
So there's no tethers on this,
no wires connecting to this.

106
00:04:36,368 --> 00:04:38,862
Everything is onboard,
and it jumped in response

107
00:04:38,862 --> 00:04:43,243
to the student just flicking on
a desk lamp next to it.

108
00:04:43,243 --> 00:04:46,071
So I think you can imagine
all the kind of cool things

109
00:04:46,071 --> 00:04:47,487
that we could do with robots

110
00:04:47,487 --> 00:04:51,604
that can run and crawl
and jump and role at this size scale.

111
00:04:51,604 --> 00:04:53,312
Right? Imagine the rubble that you get

112
00:04:53,312 --> 00:04:55,624
after a natural disaster
like an earthquake.

113
00:04:55,624 --> 00:04:57,863
Imagine these small robots
running through that rubble

114
00:04:57,863 --> 00:05:00,171
to look for survivors.

115
00:05:00,171 --> 00:05:01,817
Or imagine a lot of small robots

116
00:05:01,817 --> 00:05:03,405
running around a bridge

117
00:05:03,405 --> 00:05:05,456
in order to inspect it
and make sure it's safe

118
00:05:05,456 --> 00:05:07,916
so you don't get collapses
like this that happened

119
00:05:07,916 --> 00:05:11,233
outside of Minneapolis in 2007.

120
00:05:11,233 --> 00:05:12,995
Or just imagine what you could do

121
00:05:12,995 --> 00:05:15,518
if you had robots that could
swim through your blood.

122
00:05:15,518 --> 00:05:17,851
Right? "Fantastic Voyage," Isaac Asimov.

123
00:05:17,851 --> 00:05:22,206
Or they could operate without having
to cut you open in the first place.

124
00:05:22,206 --> 00:05:24,936
Or we could radically change
the way we build things

125
00:05:24,936 --> 00:05:28,343
if we have our tiny robots
work the same way that termites do.

126
00:05:28,343 --> 00:05:31,108
And they build these incredible
eight-meter-high mounds,

127
00:05:31,108 --> 00:05:35,196
effectively well-ventilated
apartment buildings for other termites

128
00:05:35,196 --> 00:05:37,627
in Africa and Australia.

129
00:05:37,627 --> 00:05:39,717
So I think I've given you
some of the possibilities

130
00:05:39,717 --> 00:05:42,154
of what we can do with these small robots,

131
00:05:42,154 --> 00:05:44,841
and hopefully we've made
some advances so far,

132
00:05:44,841 --> 00:05:46,553
but there's still a long way to go,

133
00:05:46,553 --> 00:05:49,359
and hopefully some of you
can contribute to that destination.

134
00:05:49,359 --> 00:05:51,417
Thanks very much.

135
00:05:51,417 --> 00:05:53,391
(Applause)