Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister

BPN803: Single Chip Mote

Alex Moreno
Titan Yuan
Yu-Chi Lin
Lydia Lee
Daniel Lovell
2023

The single chip micro mote 3C (SCµM-3C) was designed to be a wireless sensor node on a chip capable of joining a network as a bare die with a standards compliant BLE and 802.15.4 mesh communication radio while fully self-contained and functional with no external components. SCµM-3C’s deep level of integration allows users to connect a battery, program using a touchless optical programmer and be ready to connect to the network. As a sensor, SCµM-3C was shown to have a ~1 cm accurate 3D localization estimate and measure temperatures from 0 to 100C with <2 C of precision....

BPN735: Walking Silicon Microrobots

Alexander Alvara
Stephen Chung
Yun-Chieh Lee
Dang Le
2023

This project focuses on developing a new generation of millimeter scale MEMS-based autonomous walking robots with self-righting capability. These robots are based on electrostatic actuators driving planar silicon linkages, all fabricated in the device layer of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. By using electrostatic actuation, these legs have the advantage of being low power compared to other microrobot leg designs. This is key to granting the robot autonomy through low-power energy harvesting. The ultimate goal will be to join these silicon legs with a CMOS brain, battery power, a high...

BPN951: Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail (BLISS)

Alexander Alvara
Lydia Lee
Bhuvan M. Belur
2023

Space exploration often costs multiple millions of dollars for each exploratory mission to get a single piece of equipment into orbit. These missions usually return information in the form of scans or images or samples in the form of extracted material. This work proposes the manufacture and deployment of thousands of imaging capable solar sails systems with 10 gram payloads. Power generation is enabled through solar panels and batteries. Navigation is enabled through one square meter solar sails maneuvered by inchworm motors. Communications are enabled by laser transmitters and SPAD...

BPN915: Control of Microrobots with Reinforcement Learning

Yichen Liu
Zhongyu Li
Kesava Viswanadha
Rushil Desai
Xiangzong Song
2023

Generating low-level robot controllers often requires manual parameters tuning and significant system knowledge, which can result in long design times for highly specialized controllers. Moreover, with micro-robots the dynamics change on each design iteration and there is little experimental time to tune controllers. To address the problem of rapidly generating low-level controllers without domain knowledge, we propose using model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) trained on few minutes of automatically generated data. Initial results showed the capabilities of MBRL on a Crazyflie...

A CMOS Biosensor for Infectious Disease Detection

Turgut Sefket Aytür
Bernhard E. Boser
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Eva Harris
2007

The timely and accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases is indispensable for directing patient management and informing larger public health decisions. For the individual patient, delays in accurate diagnosis may delay necessary treatment and consequently result in a negative outcome. From the public health standpoint, prompt awareness of disease outbreaks is critical for an effective response. In developed countries, both the medical infrastructure and...

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

Yu-Chi Lin
Daniel Lovell
Ali M. Niknejad
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2023

We are developing a mm-square low-power wireless ADC that will detect and transmit microvolt signals, which is promising for precision measurements in biomedical applications, automotive, and mobiles. This project specifically aims to be used for a concurrent TMS-EEG-fMRI system, a highly desirable temporal and spatial imaging method to unveil the mystery of brain circuits. The precision ADC will make it possible to acquire EEG signals down to 10µV while wireless transmission will avoid safety heating issues by current induced in wired-loop under time-varying magnetic field in MRI....

BPN985: Multimaterial Nanoscale 3D Printing

Daniel Teal
2023

We propose a new multimaterial 3D printing technique with projected sub-micrometer resolution. Inorganic nanoparticles 1nm to 100nm in diameter 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. This ion printing technology should allow rapid prototyping of integrated circuits and MEMS. To date, we have made initial calculations and are currently building a proof-of-concept implementation.

Project currently funded by: Member...

BPN970: Rotary Inchworm Motor for Underwater Microrobot Propulsion

Mauricio J. Bustamante
2023

Autonomous swimming microrobots for biomedical applications and distributed sensing require locally controllable swimming mechanisms. This project aims to develop underwater, rotary electrostatic inchworm motors for artificial flagella. Our proposed design uses gap closing actuators with an angle arm design, similar to existing inchworm motors, to drive a central rotor, all fabricated with an SOI process. An artificial flagella is attached the rotor, converting the rotational motion into propulsion. Major challenges include efficient operation of electrostatic motors underwater and...

BPN956: Time-of-Flight Hardware for the Solar Probe ANalyzer for Ions (SPAN-Ion)

Lydia Lee
2023

Monitoring and building our understanding of space weather is necessary to protect current and future astronauts and hardware, as well as further our understanding of its effects on atmospheric development and loss. This project seeks to develop a radiation-hardened sensor frontend in order to measure the ion composition of the solar wind aboard the Solar Probe ANalyzer for Ions (SPAN-Ion). SPAN-Ion uses time-of-flight mass spectrometry to distinguish ions by their mass: charge ratios; the target architecture for future missions decreases mass and increases speed in exchange for several...