Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

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,...

"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...

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...