Center for Micro-BioRobotics

mbr_render-small The Center for Micro-BioRobotics IIT@SSSA is a research center focused on micro and meso-scale science and technology for bio-inspired millimetric and micrometric robots development.

CMBR aims at developing innovative methodologies and robotic technologies, new materials, and advanced components, for the design and development of high performance bio-inspired machines and systems at the micro/mesoscale, and for the development of devices for biomedical, and environmental, and rescue applications. The mission of the Center is to generate and promote new scientific and technological knowledge in the field of microbiorobotics, which is fully deployed by inventions deriving from an interdisciplinary approach to the issues tackled. The micro/mesoscale domain shows dramatic potential for giving rise to new science and new technology, and for offering innovative engineering solutions to many practical application issues. Artefacts can be developed by observing, analyzing, and modelling phenomena and strategies used by living creatures in order to achieve motion and propulsion, and to efficiently and adaptively interact with the environment.

News

Gianni Ciofani, Post Doc at CMBR, awarded for his thesis from European Society for Biomaterials

The September 6, 2011 Gianni Ciofani, brilliant alumnus (ordinary student firstly and PhD student afterwards) at Sant'Anna and actually researcher at CMBR, will withdraw in Dublin the prestigious award European Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Doctoral Award(EDA ) for his PhD thesis "Study and design of drug delivery systems for cell therapy". The award will be presented by the President of the European Society for Biomaterials, scientific non-profit organization, which aim is to encourage the improvement in the field of biomaterials, on the occasion of the 24th European Conference on Biomaterials during the specific session for young scientist (Young Scientist Forum).

Research Platforms

The scientific goals of the MicroRobotics area are primarily focused on studying and understanding sensing and actuation solutions, and locomotion strategies inspired by Nature, especially by creatures at the micro-, meso-scale, with the aim to design and develop new enabling technologies and solutions in the engineering world. In these approaches, biology represents an inspiration source, which dramatically affects and contributes to the (micro)robot design.

An approach for developing robots with sensory-motor performance more similar to those of real-world living organisms is based on observing, analyzing and modeling phenomena and strategies used by microscale living creatures in order to achieve motion and propulsion, and to interact efficiently and adaptively with the environment. Nevertheless, surviving organisms that Nature created are not necessarily optimal for the performance since their primordial need is to survive long enough to reproduce. Consequently, adapting ideas from biology can involve a variety of levels, depending very much on how far from the biological model the technical problem lies.
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The research activites of the platform are:

Scientific and technical research as well as technologically relevant applications of microstructured advanced materials have been steadily increasing during the past decades.

The interest towards the development of microdevices and microrobots based on smart materials, especially those showing electromechanical response, has been driven by various motivations. Smartness is a feature typically referring to biological systems that are able to interact adaptively with the environment. The term “Smart” generally refers to those materials that, in response to an external stimulus or to changes in their surrounding conditions are able to reversibly modify one or more of their functional or structural properties. The external stimuli causing the smart response of the material could be of various kind: physical (temperature, light, electric or magnetic fields, etc.), chemical (pH, analyte concentrations in air, water, biological fluids), mechanical (stress, strain). It is intended that the process is fully reversible: smart material is capable of returning to its initial state as soon as the trigger (external stimulus) is removed.
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The research activites of the platform are: