News – Soft and Micro Robotics Laboratory

2021

New research: “Collision resilient insect-scale soft-actuated aerial robots with high agility” is published in IEEE Transaction on Robotics

We developed a new class of soft aerial robots with unprecedented dexterity and resilience. This new 0.6g soft aerial robot has a large lift-to-weight-ratio (2.1:1). It can recover from in-flight collisions and perform acrobatic aerial maneuvers such as a somersault in 0.16 s. This work demonstrates for the first time that insect-scale aerial robots can achieve insect-like flight capabilities. A detailed description of our work can be found in MIT news.

2019

New research: “Controlled flight of a microrobot powered by soft artificial muscles” is published in Nature

We have developed the first heavier-than-air aerial robot powered by dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) and demonstrated controlled hovering flight. Each robot module weighs 160 mg, and flaps at approximately 300 Hz to generate sufficient lift forces. The full paper can be accessed through Nature’s webpage:Controlled flight of a microrobot powered by soft artificial muscles.

Selected media coverage can be found here: RoboBee powered by soft muscles

Invited talk: Insect-scale robots: functions and future applications

In a 5-minutes talk at the MIT media lab, Professor Chen briefly introduced the functions and potential applications of insect-scale robots.

2018

Professor Chen was selected on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, in the category of Science. For more information, please check out the link below:

Forbes 30 Under 30, Science category

Forbes: Bite-Sized Robots Could Transform Natural Disaster Search And Rescue

Reuters: Robotic cockroach can walk on land and swim underwater

BBC News: Could a robotic cockroach aid rescues?

Harvard SEAS: Next-generation robotic cockroach can explore underwater environments