Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Lailai Zhu is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of soft matter physics, micro-robotics, and artificial intelligence. Their work focuses on understanding and engineering the propulsion mechanisms of microscopic swimmers—from flagellated microrobots to bubble-propelled micro-rockets—with the goal of enabling active cargo delivery and autonomous navigation in viscous fluids. Zhu’s major contributions include elucidating how the intrinsic curvature of elastic filaments affects the propulsion of flagellated microrobots (21 citations), and revealing the nontrivial role of bubble deformability in the hydrodynamics of conical micro-rockets (6 citations). More recently, Zhu has broken new ground by integrating large language models (LLMs) to train microrobots to swim (6 citations) and by developing reset-free hierarchical reinforcement learning for chemotactic navigation in robotic swimmers (5 citations). This innovative fusion of AI with micro-hydrodynamics positions Zhu as a leader in the next generation of intelligent, autonomous micro-robots. Their work not only deepens our fundamental understanding of low-Reynolds-number locomotion but also paves the way for practical applications in targeted drug delivery and environmental sensing.