Autonomous Insect-Scale Swimmers

Conor  Kristofer Trygstad

In the last couple of decades, microrobotics researchers have made substantial progress in microfabrication, actuation, and control technologies that have resulted in many advanced terrestrial and aerial mm-to-cm-scale robots. Thus, a future where humans work in partnership with insect-scale robots to complete complex and dangerous tasks is quickly approaching. However, little research has been reported on developing autonomous insect-scale swimmers. Swimmers of this size have the potential to enhance current technology in ecological monitoring, aquatic search and rescue, and water system infrastructure inspection, just to name a few possibilities. Therefore, we do not believe that this current lack of autonomous insect-scale swimmers is due to an absence of applications for this technology, but rather the lack of suitable actuation and propulsion technologies currently developed to enable them. In this dissertation, we use an embodied intelligence (EI)-based approach to codesign to enable novel insect-scale system designs. We present new developments in insect-scale actuation technologies, including a new 1-mg shape-memory alloy (SMA)-based unimorph actuator design, a new 10-mg SMA-based bimorph actuator design, and a new 13-mg power-efficient SMA-based unimorph actuator design that is developed for underwater operation. Additionally, we present new developments in insect-scale propulsion technologies and demonstrate their functionality through several advanced tethered insect-scale swimmers, such as the 59-mg FRISSHBot, 90-mg VLEIBot+, and 93-mg BILLEBot. The culmination of these technological developments resulted in the creation of the 900-mg VLEIBot++, an autonomous insect-scale surface swimmer, and the 1.3-gram AutoBILLEBot, an autonomous insect-scale underwater swimmer. Overall, the work presented here aims to address significant challenges in scaling down aquatic robot technology and establishes a new frontier of scientific knowledge. Namely, the creation of these autonomous insect-scale swimmers enables a new realm of research questions that can be addressed regarding fluid mechanics, control, and navigation.

Autonomous Insect-Scale Swimmers

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