Challenges for Efffective Millirobots

Centimeter-scale robots will create the opportunity to manipulate, sense and explore a wide range of environments with greatly reduced cost and expanded capabilities. In many applications, the capability of millirobots depends on mobility, multiplicity, and intelligence. For intelligence, sensing and computation capabilities are now almost available off the shelf. However, there are significant challenges for millirobots in creating all-terrain capable mobility, and low production costs for multiplicity. The mesoscopic range between MEMS and conventional robots provides a new domain with rich challenges. There are advantages to this size scale for novel low-cost fabrication methods, including rapid prototyping of millirobots from kits of parts. This paper provides an overview of some approaches to key challenges in millirobots for design, fabrication, actuation, and power, illustrated by examples in legged and winged millirobots made using carbon fiber