6 accepted papers
We introduce Phantom Twist, a type of single-propeller UAV designed to achieve low visibility through high-speed spinning and the exploitation of motion blur. We develop a two-stage automated design pipeline that optimizes the placement of functional components including batteries, control PCB, moto…
Spherical robots typically require at least two actuators to achieve controlled 2D planar motion. Here we present Rollbot, the first spherical robot capable of controllably maneuvering on a 2D plane with a single actuator, challenging this assumption. Rollbot rolls on the ground in a circular patter…
Communication and position sensing are among the most important capabilities for swarm robots to interact with their peers and perform tasks collaboratively. However, the hardware required to facilitate communication and position sensing is often too complicated, expensive, and bulky to be carried o…
Recent work on battery-free soft robotics has demonstrated the use of liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) to build shape-changing materials activated by applied external heat. However, sources of heat must typically be in direct field-of-view of the robot (i.e. NIR, laser, and visual light EM sources or…
Complexity, cost, and power requirements for the actuation of individual robots can play a large factor in limiting the size of robotic swarms. Here we present PCBot, a minimalist robot that can precisely move on an orbital shake table using a bi-stable solenoid actuator built directly into its PCB.…
This paper presents a radio-frequency (RF) based assistive technology for voice impairments (i.e., dysphonia), which occurs in an estimated 1% of the global population. We specifically focus on acquired voice disorders where users continue to be able to make facial and lip gestures associated with s…