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Date:  Thu, November 02, 2023
Time:  10:30am - 11:30am
Location:  Holmes Hall 389
Speaker:  Dr. Daniel Drew, University of Utah

Abstract

In the near future, swarms of insect-scale robots will be vital tools in industrial, commercial, and personal settings. While bioinspired approaches to propelling insect-scale fliers have yielded promising results, they present a very challenging path to ubiquity. In this talk, I will present my efforts to develop a new class of flying microrobot which moves unlike anything found in nature, propelled by silent and solid- state atmospheric ion thrusters. After a journey from initial theory to the first controlled flight, I will discuss the path towards power autonomy, as well as a variety of exciting new applications for high-performance electroaerodynamic actuators. The talk will conclude by touching on some of the new strategies my group is taking to move beyond individual platforms and start to develop truly useful swarms.

Biography

Daniel Drew is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah and a Core Faculty member of the interdisciplinary Utah Robotics Center. He was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University after receiving his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2018 and a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2013. His research focuses on the development of autonomous insect-scale systems, bridging the worlds of robotics, microsystems, and design. His work has received honorable mentions at IEEE and ACM conferences, been featured in the Smithsonian and IEEE Spectrum magazines, and been presented at venues ranging from the Pentagon to the San Francisco Exploratorium.