Robotics Seminar: Sarah Bergbreiter

Описание: On November 5, 2025, Sarah Bergbreiter presented “Microsystems-inspired Robotics” as part of the Michigan Robotics Seminar Series.

Abstract
The ability to manufacture microscale sensors and other components for robotic systems has inspired the robotics community for almost 40 years. There have been huge success stories; MEMS inertial sensors have enabled an entire market of low-cost, small-scale UAVs. However, the promise of ant-scale robots has largely failed. Ants and other small insects can move through challenging environments from picnic tables to front lawns, but few small-scale robots have moved outside the lab. Similarly, the vision of large numbers of microfabricated sensors in 'skins' that help robots interact directly with their environment has suffered in part due to the brittle materials and size constraints in micro-fabrication. This talk will present our progress in the design of sensors, mechanisms, and actuators to achieve more robustness, dynamic range, and complexity in smaller packages. Results include arrays of strain and flow sensors that can be used for more agile autonomous flight as well as simple design and control approaches for improved locomotion in small-scale mobile robots.

Bio
Sarah Bergbreiter joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University as a Professor in the fall of 2018 after spending ten years at the University of Maryland, College Park. She started her academic career with a B.S.E. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1999. After a short introduction to the challenges of sensor networks at a small startup company, she received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2007 with a focus on small-scale robots. Prof. Bergbreiter received the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2008, the NSF CAREER Award in 2011, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2013 for her research on engineering robotic systems down to millimeter size scales. She has received several Best Paper awards at conferences like ICRA, IROS, and Hilton Head Workshop with her fabulous group of students and former students, and is a Fellow of the ASME. She also served as Vice Chair of DARPA’s Microsystems Exploratory Council from 2020 through 2022. Outside of academia, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, running or biking outside rather slowly, and the rare game of water polo.

More:
Michigan Robotics Seminar Series: https://robotics.umich.edu/events/rob...
Micro-Robotics Laboratory at CMU: https://www.cmu.edu/mrl/