University of Washington researchers are rolling out another tiny robotic breakthrough, this time in the form of an autonomous device that relies on surrounding light or radio waves to move in short bursts.
The robot, dubbed MilliMobile, is about the size of a penny and weighs as much as a raisin, and a typical power source, such as a battery, has been kicked to the curb in favor of more environmentally friendly approach.
MilliMobile has a solar panel-like energy harvester that sits above four tiny wheels, enabling the robot to roll — in incremental steps — about the 30 feet in an hour across surfaces such as concrete or packed soil.
Carrying three times its own weight in equipment such as cameras and sensors, the device takes internet-of-things style data collection and makes it mobile. Such tiny robots can be used on a smart farm to track humidity and soil moisture or in a factory to seek out electromagnetic noise to find equipment malfunctions — especially when deployed in a swarm.
“We took inspiration from ‘intermittent computing,’ which breaks complex programs into small steps, so a device with very limited power can work incrementally, as energy is available,” said the UW’s Kyle Johnson. “With MilliMobile, we applied this concept to motion. We reduced the robot’s size and weight so it takes only a small amount of energy to move. And, similar to an animal taking steps, our robot moves in discrete increments, using small pulses of energy to turn its wheels.”
MilliMobile was tested both indoors and out and in very low light situations, and was still able to inch along. The robot is also able to steer itself, navigating with onboard sensors and tiny computing chips.
Johnson, a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, was co-lead author on research that the team will present Monday at the ACM MobiCom 2023 conference in Madrid, Spain.
Vicente Arroyos, a UW doctoral student in the Allen School, was also a co-lead author. Dennis Yin, who completed this work as a UW undergraduate in electrical and computer engineering, and Shwetak Patel, a UW professor in the Allen School and in electrical and computer engineering, are co-authors, and Vikram Iyer, a UW assistant professor in the Allen School, is the senior author.
