Towards Autonomous Kirigami Materials for Insect Scale Robotics

A major differentiating factor between engineered systems (e.g., an F-16), and their animal counterparts (e.g., a fruit fly) is robustness, or the ability to consistently perform in adverse conditions. While animals thrive in dynamic environments by continually adapting to current circumstances, engineered systems are rigid, relying on predesigned mechanisms and routines, which reduces their overall reliability. It is hypothesized that animals achieve robustness by tightly integrating sensing, actuation and feedback control in redundant, hierarchical structures throughout their bodies. This approach starkly contrasts with the incremental incorporations of analogous systems in modern engineered platforms and it is this lack of effective integration which is limiting their use in mission critical applications like recon, search and rescue and enemy engagements. These effects are severely felt in the performance of autonomous robots especially at the small scale where offloading processing to powerful computers is not an option.<br/>A promising framework upon which inherently robust engineered systems can be built, is with so-called “robotic materials” (RM), i.e. a medium that tightly integrates local and redundant sensing, actuation, processing and communication. Readily available RMs would add unprecedented capabilities to our engineered systems but unfortunately, it is challenging to fabricate these materials. Popular additive manufacturing techniques like 3D printing, CMOS/MEMS fabrication are not ideal for integrating vastly different materials technologies or creating intricate features (at the micron scale) in a scalable, low-cost approach. One promising manufacturing method is the kirigami based stack laminate approach (Smart Composite Microstructures (SCM), Printed Circuit Microelectromechanical Systems Fabrication (PC-MEMS), etc.), which combines additive and subtractive processes selectively to successfully build individual RM components: (structure) insect scale robots, (sensing) stretchable sensor networks, (actuation) shape changing structures and (processing/communication) flexible electronics, but it has yet to be used to integrate these features into a single medium consistently. We will present our group's latest research on extending the PC-MEMS fabrication approach to begin to approach the promise of robotic materials and realize autonomous functionality. Specifically, we take advantage of femtosecond laser micromachining to pattern diverse materials including variety of smart materials which could not be previously fabrication using traditional laser processing. My research will focus on the development of a microrobotic smart leg with robust closed loop sensing and actuation, based on a laminate robotic material (LRM), helping to solve the manufacturing and system integration challenges of building LRMs. This platform will be used to study novel RM control algorithms, and the associated improvements to flight robustness after sustaining damage.