An Untethered, Globally Controllable MEMS Micro-robot

We present a steerable, electrostatic, untethered, MEMS micro-robot, with dimensions of 60 µm by 250 µm by 10 µm. This micro-robot is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude smaller in size than previous micro-robotic systems. The device consists of a curved, cantilevered steering arm, mounted on an untethered scratch drive actuator. These two components are fabricated monolithically from the same sheet of conductive polysilicon, and receive a common power and control signal through a capacitive coupling with an underlying electrical grid.

More information can be found at:
An Untethered, Electrostatic, Globally-Controllable MEMS Micro-Robot (with B. R. Donald, C. Levey, C. McGray, and D. Rus). Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 2006; 15(1):1-15.

Duration : 0:1:28