We recently demonstrated a family of implanatable, miniaturized, thorax-mounted systems consisting of neural stimulators, muscular stimulators, a microcontroller and a microbattery capable of wireless continuous flight control of living insects. Flight initiation, cessation and elevation control were accomplished through neural stimulus of the brain which elicited, suppressed or modulated wing oscillation. Turns were triggered through the direct muscular stimulus of either of the basalar muscles. I will discuss these systems, their limitations, our flight control results and discuss future research directions (and what we still do not understand!).

Bio:
Michel M. Maharbiz is an istant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California Berkeley. He is a Director of the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC). He received his B.S. from Cornell and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley for his work on microbioreactor systems (which led to the foundation of Microreactor, Inc. – _www.microreactor.com) with Professor Roger T. Howe (EECS) and Professor Jay D. Keasling (ChemE). He was previously a GE Scholar and an Intel IMAP Fellow. Professor Maharbizs current research interests include micro/nano systems for cell culture and biology, parallel embly processes and bio-derived fabrication methods. His groups long term goals are to understand developmental mechanisms as a way to engineer and fabricate machines.

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Research interests: BioMEMS, Drug Delivery Systems, Biofluid Dynamics, Mixing, Free Surface Flows/Spray, Advanced Heat Transfer

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