Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister

Pister Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

Walking Silicon: Actuators and Legs for Small-Scale Terrestrial Robots

Daniel Contreras
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Michel M. Maharbiz
Liwei Lin
2018

This dissertation presents work on components and actuators for silicon-based walking centimeter-scale robots. The focus on this work was on the actuators used to drive these robots and the linkages that make the basic structure of the robot leg.

Pin-joints are used as the basic unit of the leg linkages. The pin-joints were tested in terms of robustness and demonstrated high maximum tensile loads of over 5mN and compressive loads in excess of 100mN.

Electrostatic inchworm motors were the...

Brad Wheeler

Alumni
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2019

Low Power, Crystal-Free Design for Monolithic Receivers

Brad Wheeler
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Ali M. Niknejad
Steven D. Glaser
2019

Predictions of the proliferation of hundreds of billions of connected wireless devices have yet to come true. The economics of such deployments becoming feasible require that current wireless modules become smaller, cheaper, and use less power. A typical wireless device combines a RF System-on-Chip with multiple frequency references, passive components, anantenna, and a battery on a printed circuit board. The Single Chip Mote project aims toreduce the size, weight, power, and cost of these devices by eliminating the off...

Alyssa Zhou

Alumni
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Michel M. Maharbiz (Advisor)
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2020

Frequency Tunable MEMS-Based Timing Oscillators and Narrowband Filters

Henry Barrow
Clark T.-C. Nguyen
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Liwei Lin
2015

Both the accuracy of the clocks and ability of filters to achieve bandwidths small enough to select individual channels depend heavily on the accuracy and precision to which the frequency-setting devices they rely on are constructed. Inevitably, fabrication tolerances are finite, which means the ability to attain the highest performance relies on trimming or tuning. This dissertation focuses on methods by which voltage-controlled frequency tuning of capacitively-transduced micromechanical resonators make possible 1) an ultra-compact, low-power 32.768-kHz micromechanical clock...

A CMOS Biosensor for Infectious Disease Detection

Turgut Aytur
Bernhard E. Boser
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2007

This dissertation describes the design and implementation of an immunoassay platform based on micron-scale magnetic beads. We target the diagnosis of infectious diseases in developing countries, where small, inexpensive, and automated tests are required. Conventional sensor technologies, such as Giant Magneto-Resistors (GMRs), have excellent sensitivity but are expensive and difficult to integrate with other circuitry. The system presented here is built around a CMOS sensor chip and uses standard manufacturing techniques present in the electronics industry. CMOS technology can...

KSJP10: Ultra-Low Energy Circuits for Distributed Sensor Networks (Smart Dust)

Brett Warneke
Brian Leibowitz
Mike Scott
2003

The goal of this project is to develop an ultra-low energy integrated circuit that will form the core of a self-contained, millimeter scale sensing and communication platform for a massively distributed sensor network. The integrated circuit will contain an integrated sensor, an A/D converter, microprocessor, SRAM, communications circuits, and power control circuits. The IC, together with the sensors, will operate from a power source integrated with the platform.

Project end date: 07/30/03

KSJP26: RF Dust for Human Gestural Interpretation

Benjamin Cook
2003

The goal of this project is to create an intuitive and natural interface mapping human expressions to the digital domain. Applications are limitless, but the focus of this project will be interpreting accelerations produced by human gestures as musical signals to allow realtime musical performance. Aquisition of these high resolution acceleration signals is achieved by square millimeter size MEMS sensing devices.

Project end date: 08/20/03

KSJP21: Algorithms for Position and Data Recovery in Wireless Sensor Networks

Lance Doherty
2004

The goal of this project is to guide the development of sensor network theory. In this growing field, it is important to intelligently design experiments that explore the capabilities and discover the limitations of data collection from sensor networks. We seek to design quantifiable measures of algorithmic performance, apposite terminology, and paradigmatic perspectives to aid in the development of an information theory.

Project end date: 08/18/04

KSJP25: Ultra-Low Power Radio for Sensor Networks

Alyosha Molnar
2004

Wireless sensor networks require cheap, very low power radios. We are exploring simple circuits in standard analog CMOS to provide this functionality. Although performance requirements are relatively easy, the transceiver should only consume on the order of 1mW. The challenge therefore is to provide relatively high transmitter efficiency even when radiating relatively little power, and to maintain a relatively selective, sensitive receiver while consuming as little current as possible. At a 1% duty cycle from a standard lithium-ion coin cell, this implies several years of operation...