Nature routinely makes smart, complex, yet microscopically tiny machines: cells. But how can humans do it? And can we do it in a way that is easy to design and understand? This talk is about how to build a microscopic robot, one too small to see with the naked eye. I’ll discuss a platform that merges silicon-based microelectronics with a new technology for motion control to build simple, legged robots smaller than a hair’s width. Every step in this process can be performed massively in parallel, allowing us to produce over one million robots per 4-inch wafer. Combined, I’ll show how these results point to a future of intelligent, highly functional robots that are ten times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
