Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister

Pister Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

Solid Propellant Microrockets

Dana Teasdale
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Albert P. Pisano
2000

This paper details the design, fabrication and testing of millimeter scale solid propellant rockets for use as one-time deployment platforms carrying communication-equipped MEMS sensor systems, known as Smart Dust. Each rocket assembly is an integrated system, incorporating a combustion chamber, composite propellant grain, nozzle, igniter, and thermoelectric power converter. Solid propellant is advantageous for a millimeter-scale single-use device because of its simple implementation, unlike liquid propellants, which...

Algorithms for Position and Data Recovery in Wireless Sensor Networks

Lance Doherty
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Kannan Ramchandran
2000

Networks of hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes equipped with sensing, computing and communicationability are conceivable with recent technological advancement. Methods are presented in this report to recover and visualize data from wireless sensor networks, as well as to estimate node positions. Acommunication system is assumed wherein information from sensor nodes can be transferred to acentralized computer for data processing, though suggestions are made for extensions to distributed computation. Specifically, this...

Optical MEMS for Free-Space Communication

Lixia Zhou
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Joseph M. Kahn
Roger T. Howe
Alice M. Agogino
2004
The convergence of MEMS technology with communication and digital circuitry makes high-speed, low power, free-space communication links over distances up to several km possible. MEMS corner cube retroreflectors (CCRs) are proposed to work as a passive optical transmitter, sending collected information back to an interrogating center. MEMS scanning microm...

Piezoelectric Aluminum Nitride Vibrating RF MEMS for Radio Front-End Technology

Gianluca Piazza
Albert P. Pisano
Roger T. Howe
Liwei Lin
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2005
The demand of consumer electronics for RF filters and frequency reference elements has focused attention on the reduction of size, power consumption and price and pushed current research interests towards the manufacturing of a single-chip, integrated RF solution. Vibrating contour-mode MEMS resonators constitute the most promising technology for ultimately realizing this vision. This dissertation presents analytical and experimental results on a new class...

Microfabricated Silicon High Aspect Ratio Flexures for In-Plane Motion

Christopher Guild Keller
Roger T. Howe
John W. Morris, Jr.
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Timothy D. Sands
1998

High aspect ratio microfabricated silicon flexures for in-plane motion were made by three methods: (1) 2-sided timed bulk etching in aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH), (2) deep reactive ion etching (RB) with Cl2/He, and with SF6 (Bosch process), and (3) the hexsil ...

Adversarial Swarm Defense with Decentralized Swarms

Jason Zhou
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2021

The rapid proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in both commercial and consumer applications in recent years raises serious concerns of public security, as the versatility of UAVs allow the platform to be easily adapted for malicious activities by adversarial actors. While interdiction methods exist, they are either indiscriminate or are unable to disable a large swarm of drones. Recent work in wireless communications, microelectromechanical systems, fabrication, and multi-agent reinforcement learning make UAV-based counter-UAV systems increasingly feasible - that is, defense...

Analyzing the Prediction Accuracy of Trajectory-Based Models with High-Dimensional Control Policies for Long-term Planning in MBRL

Howard Zhang
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2021

Learning effective policies with model-based reinforcement learning is highly dependent on the accuracy of the dynamics model. Recently, a new parametrization called the trajectory-based model was introduced, which takes in an initial state, a future time index, and control policy parameters, and returns the state at that future time index [3]. This new method has demonstrated improved prediction accuracy in long horizons, increased sample efficiency, and ability to predict the task reward. However, this model has limited transferability to MBRL due to the limited expressivity of its...

Small Autonomous Robot Actuator (SARA): A Solar-powered Wireless MEMS Gripper

Alex Moreno
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2021

Solar-powered actuation of a 15 mN electrostatic MEMS gripper was demonstrated while wirelessly triggered by IEEE 802.15.4 RF signals. The solar-powered gripper was shown to actuate at a rate of 640 um/s. The complete system is composed of three capacitors and three chips: MEMS gripper, microprocessor/crystal-free radio, and solar cell array/high voltage buffer. Control signals for the electrostatic inchworm motors originate from the 3x2x0.3 mm3 chip with an ARM Cortex-M0 microprocessor and are passed through 119V high voltage buffers. Power for all components, including the crystal-free...

Redesigning Power Systems on a Single Chip Micro Mote with Berkeley Analog Generator Low Dropout Series Regulator Generation

Jackson Paddock
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2021

The Single Chip Micro Mote (SCμM) is a crystal-free radio chip with an on-board CPU developed at UC Berkeley in the Swarm Lab. This chip was designed to function as the brain of an untethered microrobot with no external components other than a power source required. SCμM also features an optical programmer so that no cables are even needed to program it. With its size and functionality, SCμM has the potential to allow a swarm of microrobots to communicate and perform complex tasks in tandem.

Like every other circuit, SCμM needs power to operate, and one of the most common power...

Jason Zhou

Alumni
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
M.S. 2021