Publications

CotsBots: An Off-the-Shelf Platform for Distributed Robotics

Sarah Bergbreiter
Kristofer S.J. Pister
David Culler
2004

This thesis presents the CotsBots – inexpensive and modular robots built entirely from commercial off-the-shelf components. These robots provide a convenient platform on which to investigate algorithms, cooperation and distributed sensing in large (greater than 50) robot networks. Each robot is small (13cm x 6.5cm base) and costs approximately $200 in quantity. Each is equipped with on-board processing, radio communication, and a base platform...

Carbon Nanotube-based MEMS Energy Storage Devices

Yingqi Jiang
Liwei Lin
Albert P. Pisano
Constance Chang-Hasnain
2011
Carbon nanotube (CNT) forests have been utilized as electrodes in supercapacitors in this work for energy storage applications. High surface area to volume ratio, good electrical conductivity, and low contact resistance to a bottom metal electrode make CNT forests attractive as electrodes in supercapacitors. Several approaches have been investigated to improve the performances such as configurations, power and energy density of CNT-based supercapacitors, including the single layer architecture by utilizing...

Biochemical Microflow System / Microfabricated Optical Chopper

Michael T. Ching
Richard M. White
Albert P. Pisano
1993

The application of micromechanics to biochemical instrumentation yields many improvements in size, efficiency, and power consumption. The microdevices have small volumes which are compatible with many biochemical reactions. With the addition of integrated sensors, ...

A Large-Displacement Out-of-Plane SOI Actuator for Applications in Confocal Microscopy

Christopher Rulon Bowes-Lyon Ellis
Luke P. Lee
Roger T. Howe
2001

A silicon-on-insulator actuator has been designed for large DC deflections out of the plane of a wafer. The design employs deep reactive ion etching with a delay mask of two distinct silicon dioxide thicknesses to form silicon structures...

A High-Voltage Charge Pump in Bulk CMOS

Eugene Lau Cheung
Bernhard Boser
Albert P. Pisano
1996

The goal of this project is to investigate a circuit for generating 80V in a bulk CMOS technology. This voltage is needed for powering a micromachined electrostatic actuator, and it must be generated from a 5V ...

Adaptive Control Strategies for MEMS Gyroscopes

Sungsu Park
Roberto Horowitz
Roger T. Howe
Bernhard E. Boser
2000
This dissertation presents adaptive control strategies for MEMS z-axis gyroscopes. Specifically, a unified methodology is proposed for designing and analyzing the performance of control algorithms that can identify and, in an adaptive fashion, compensate for most fabrication defects...

A Self-Nucleating Evaporator: An Experimental Study of Low-Superheat Pool Boiling via Injection of Gaseous By-Products from the Thermal Decomposition of Azobis-Isobutyronitrile

Christopher William Hogue
Albert P. Pisano
Van P. Carey
2008

For the purpose of exploring a novel heat transfer concept to radically enhance the evaporator performance of the microColumnated Loop Heat Pipe (μLHP) system, an experimental investigation into the feasibility of a low-superheat, passive, self-nucleating evaporator surface was performed. The evaporator...

Articulated Mechanisms and Electrostatic Actuators for Autonomous Microrobots

Richard Yeh
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Roger T. Howe
Dorian Liepmann
2001

Enabled by advances in both integrated circuit technology and micro electromechanical systems (MEMS), the continuing miniaturization and integration of electronics, sensors, and actuators and mechanisms will make it feasible to create insect-sized autonomous microrobots. We propose to create a class of autonomous crawling microrobots the size on the order f 1cm^3 and equipped with a power source, low-power CMOS controller, sensors, wireless communications devices and motorized articulated legs. The work presented here demonstrates how articulated insect legs could be created from rigid...

A Micromachined Vibrating Ring Gyroscope

Michael William Putty
Khalil Najafi
Kensall D. Wise
Stella W. Pang
Noel Perkins
1995

A new micromachined gyroscope based on a vibrating ring is described. The device measures rotation rate or whole angle inertial rotation by monitorying the position of node lines in a vibrating ring. To sense rotation, the ring is electrostatically forced into an elliptically shaped vibration mode and the psoition of the node lines are capacitively monitored. When the device is rotated about the ring center, the node lines, lag behind the rotations due the the Coriolis force. The control and readout circuitry monitors this lag and develops a corrective voltage, that is proportional to the...

A CMOS Magnetic Sensor Chip for Biomedical Applications

Peng Liu
Bernhard E. Boser
Seth Sanders
Yuri Suzuki
2012

The growing need for point-of-care applications in global health and personalized medicine motivates a significant reduction in the size and cost of present technologies. Current solutions use fluorescent or enzymatic labels with complex optical instrumentation that has proven difficult to miniaturize. Recently, magnetic bead labeling has emerged as an alternative solution enabling portable ...