Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Micromechanical resonant switches have the potential to greatly outperform currently dominant semiconductor switches due to their higher figures of merit. Of the current designs available, resonant MEMS switches are among the most promising, as they can achieve very large amplitudes at resonance with greatly reduced actuation voltages compared to more conventional MEMS switches, such as those that rely on pull-in based actuation.

Such resonant micromechanical devices are currently in their infancy, and require additional optimization and analysis to resolve their...

We are exploring potential applications of our jumping microrobots in space. While our 1.9x1.2x0.06cm robot has previously jumped 3mm (and can theoretically achieve 3cm or much more) in Earth gravity, the same actuator would reach escape velocity in the 6 micro-g gravity of the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Bennu, the target of NASAs current OSIRIS-REx sample return mission. This implies it is possible to build a thousand-robot swarm of 1cm^3 1g robot capable of hopping around and measuring an NEA. This is useful because such a swarm is simultaneously lighter (by orders of magnitude) and more...