Robotic insects

Abstract

The Harvard Microrobotics Lab seeks to elucidate how to apply biological principles to the creation of robust, agile, inexpensive robotic insects. However, biological inspiration alone is not sufficient to create robots that mimic the agile locomotion of their arthropod analogs. This is particularly true as the characteristic size of the robot is decreased: to create high performance articulated robotic insects, we must explore novel manufacturing paradigms, new forms of actuation and sensing, and alternative control strategies for under-actuated, nonlinear, computationally-limited systems. This talk will highlight this research aimed at creating a flying robotic insect the size of a housefly.