| MicroRobotics |
|
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. Bio-inspiration can be originated from molecular and cellular reproduction to insects, spiders, lobsters, octopuses, aquatic creatures and amphibious animals such as salamanders and snakes, just to mention some, and also plants. Actually, mimicking living beings requires in many cases new components, as well, like new materials, mechanisms, sensors, actuators, and control schemes. On the other hand, bio-inspired approaches can also help further investigation on new components and can lead to breakthrough advances of (micro)robotics technologies. One of the main reasons why the biological world at the micro-scale has not always, however, yielded much in concrete mechanisms for actuation and sensing strategies, is that the engineered components did not have the performance or form factor of their biological counterparts. New solutions in technology including micro- nano-fabrication must be investigated taking advantage of novel materials that create the final morphology of the components. Moreover, in considering the biological models at the micro-scale for sensing and actuation, by undertaking a thorough investigation of bio-inspired technology and materials new fields of application can be originated in areas like medicine and biomedical engineering, but also in many other areas that can span from energy to food, environment and sustainable technology. The advances of robotics technology, related in part to the adoption of such bio-inspired approaches in robot design, are also opening new opportunities for the application of micro-robotics in biological research. Approaches Research Topics
|