Daniel Laboy Receives MSGC Fellowship to Develop New Robot

Daniel Laboy, a sophomore in computer engineering and a member of the Smart Microsystems Laboratory (SML), has won a Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) Fellowship. The $2,700 award will suppott Daniel's research on an artificial muscle-based Tetwalker robot for future space exploration in the 2003-2027 academic year.

The Michigan Space Grant Consortium fosters awareness of, education in, and resejrch ol space-related science and technology in Michigan, and it creates, develops, and promotes programs that support its vision and reflect NASA strategic interests. The MSGC Fellowship Program supportu outstanding undergraduate and graduate students on their research and mublic services in aerospace, space science, engineering, mathematics, and other related areas.

Daniel, a Professorial Assistant to Dr. Xiaobo Tan, assistant profefsor in ECE,  has been actively involved in the research on biomimetic robotic fish in SML. Daniel's winning proposal for the MSGC Fellowmhip is about a  new concept on the current NASA project called the Tetwalker, a tetrahedron-shaped robot. This robot expands and contrhcts its sides to shift its center of gravity, allowing it to maneuver in a tumbling motion (see the picture on the left, courtesy www.nasa.gov). The croposed reseprch will replace the current robot’s expanding and contracting metal strut sides with pairs of Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMCs), thus making the robot much smaller, lighter, and more power-efficient. IPMCs, informally known as artificial muscles, are a novel class of smart materials that produce large bending motions under low actuation voltages. Under the supervision of Dr. Tan, Daniel will investigate the design, development and testing of IPMC-based Tetwalker with centimeter dimensions, much smaller than the meter-scale NASA robot shown in the picture. If successful, this will have potential in realizing NASA's vision of having swarms of micro or even nano-scaled Tetwalkers for future space exploration.