Small-scale robots – from one to a swarm

Abstract:

Nature showcases small organisms with remarkable individual abilities and collective power – from ants carrying weights much larger than themselves, to schools of juvenile fish navigating and evading predators. Imagine replicating such feats with swarms of small robots. These swarms can access previously unreachable spaces and enable broader applications in environmental sensing and interaction. However, realizing miniaturized robotic swarms poses significant challenges in both individual robot performance and swarm behavior coordination.

In this talk, I will present my research on building actuators and power supply components for small-scale robots, as well as coordinating a swarm of small robots with limited sensing and computing capabilities. I will begin by introducing a 3D electrostatic actuator inspired by skeletal muscle, which achieves high energy density through an increased surface-to-volume ratio. Next, I will present a compact kilovolt (kV) generator using pyroelectricity – a novel method for achieving kV-level voltages in systems with extreme size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Lastly, I will demonstrate the swarm operation of a fish-inspired robot collective, presenting the first experimental realization of fully vision-based 3D underwater formations using implicit coordination. I will also discuss ongoing work creating novel tiny swimmers. These advancements pave the way for integrating microsystem technologies with swarm robotics, enabling the development of next-generation small robotic platforms and expanding the boundaries of robotic applications.

Bio:

Di Ni is a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, working with Prof. Radhika Nagpal in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She received her PhD (2022) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, where she was advised by Prof. Amit Lal. Her research lies at the intersection of MEMS and robotics, with a particular focus on developing small-scale robots for collective swarm operations in complex environments. Prior to her Ph.D., she earned her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Physics from Cornell University and Beijing Normal University, respectively. She has been recognized as an RSS pioneer for 2024 and is the recipient of the Princeton SEAS Innovation Grant.