Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister

Pister Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

BPNX1035: Six-Axis Control of Electrostatically Levitated Mass

Yichen Liu
Daniel Lovell
Daniel Teal
Emily Tan
Hani Gomez
Alexander Alvara
2025

The research focus of this project is to design, fabricate and develop a six-axis controlled electrostatically levitated mass system. While electrostatic levitation has been demonstrated before, this project focuses on developing a smaller form factor (10cmx10cm), low power (0.5W), and higher mass system. The proof mass will be levitated using actuation electrodes: four top electrodes for levitation and control of z-axis position as well as rotation about x- and y-axes, and six side electrodes for control of x- and y-axis position and z-axis rotation. To achieve stability in equilibrium,...

BPNX1048: HelioSwarm - Hardware for the Electron Electrostatic Spectrograph (New Project)

Amanda Jung
Phyllis Whittlesey
2025

The HelioSwarm mission aims to characterize plasma turbulence, a fundamental process affecting space weather and cosmic phenomena, including interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and corotating interaction regions (CIRs) from the sun. These characterizations will be driven by nine spacecraft—one central hub and eight smaller nodes—for multi-scale, multi-point measurements of solar wind and interplanetary magnetic fields. The Electron Electrostatic Spectrograph will be located on the hub and it is the only direct electron measurement tool in the swarm. This project requires the...

BPNX1047: Single-Chip CMOS+X Piezoelectric Test Vehicle for Wireless IoT (New Project)

Daniel Lovell
Borivoje Nikolić
Jessica Boles
2025

"This project aims to develop a 130 nm mixed-signal CMOS system-on-chip (SoC) Test Vehicle that can subsequently be combined with thin-film piezoelectric materials to create an integrated, single-chip wireless IoT platform. The SoC, which includes a RISC-V microprocessor, a Bluetooth Low-Energy radio, and sensor interface electronics, is designed for minimal power consumption and wide operating voltage range. In addition to these core functions, the CMOS Test Vehicle will feature specialized interface circuits - including a sustaining amplifier for piezoelectric timing oscillators, a...

BPN987: Single-chip µV Precision ADC for SCµM-V

Yu-Chi Lin
Daniel Lovell
Ali M. Niknejad
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2025

We are developing a millimeter-square low-power wireless ADC capable of detecting and transmitting microvolt-level signals. This ADC offers potential for high-precision measurements in various domains, including biomedical, automotive, and IoT. The immediate objective of this project is to design a concurrent TMS-EEG-MRI system – a temporal and spatial imaging method that may unveil the intricacies of brain circuits. The high-precision ADC enables acquisition of EEG signals down to 10µV, while the wireless communication remains robust to heating and disturbance issues induced by MRI...

BPN915: Control of Microrobots with Reinforcement Learning

Yichen Liu
Kesava Viswanadha
Zhongyu Li
Emily Tan
Nelson Lojo
Derrick Han Sun
Aviral Mishra
Rushil Desai
2025

Developing task schedulers and low-level end-to-end controllers for microrobots operating in complex environments often demands extensive system and environment knowledge, leading to prolonged design cycles for specialized controllers. To expedite the generation of general controllers without requiring domain-specific expertise, we propose utilizing model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) trained within simulated environments. Our research advances microrobot control through two key approaches: modeling the long-term dynamics of robots and distilling computationally intensive model...

BPN803: Single Chip Mote

Daniel Lovell
Titan Yuan
Yu-Chi Lin
Kelly Tou
2025

The Single-Chip Micro Mote (SCµM) is an integrated wireless sensor node that pushes the boundaries of system-on-chip integration. A single mote is intended to be fully self-contained and functional when supplied only with a power source, and the on-chip crystal-free radio is designed to comply with BLE and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless personal area network standards. In previous work, SCµM-3C was demonstrated to join an 802.15.4 mesh network running OpenWSN, transmit BLE beacon packets to a cell phone, and perform RF temperature compensation via both initial calibration and...

BPN735: Walking Silicon Microrobots

Yichen Liu
Alexander Alvara
Daniel Lovell
Dang Le
2025

Our goal is to build a family of autonomous silicon robotic insects with actuating, computing, and power capabilities integrated. A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) device is used to house all three components. These robots use electrostatic actuators driving silicon linkages, all fabricated in the device layer of the wafer. By using electrostatic actuation, these actuator linkage systems have the advantage of being low power compared to other methods of actuation on microscale granting robot autonomy through low-power energy harvesting. Computation and communication are carried out with Single...

BPN985: Multimaterial Nanoscale 3D Printing

Daniel Teal
2024

We propose a new multimaterial direct-write printing technique with projected sub-micron resolution. Inorganic nanoparticles (≈1-10nm) of common microfabrication materials are electrically charged, manipulated electromagnetically in vacuum with an ion trap, and shot toward a substrate where they deposit onto a part under construction, similar to PVD methods. To date, we have successfully demonstrated basic multimaterial deposition. Eventually, this ion printing technology could allow rapid prototyping of integrated circuits and MEMS.

Project ended: 12/20/2024

Carson Spoo

Undergraduate Researcher
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
B.S. 2026 (Anticipated)

BPN990: Anti-Drone Radar-Guided Micromissiles

Titan Yuan
Daniel Lovell
Carson Spoo
Cedric Murphy
Jenna Dickman
Asa Garner
Eric Yang
2025

Since drones can be flown remotely or autonomously and can navigate dangerous environments without any risk to human operators, they are attractive for military applications, including surveillance, reconnaissance, and combat missions. At the same time, enemy drones pose a growing serious threat to civilians and soldiers. Current anti-drone warfare is either inaccurate, expensive, or large in size, so this project aims to build a low-cost, crayon-sized radar-guided microrocket to target drones up to 100 m away.

Project currently funded by: Membership Fees