Welcome to the Harvard Microrobotics Lab

Our research focuses on design, fabrication, control, and analysis of biologically-inspired microrobots and soft robots. Expertise in microfabrication and microsystem design, combined with insights from nature, enable us to create high-performance aerial and ambulatory microrobots. We use these robots as tools to explore open questions in micromechanics, actuation, fluid mechanics, controls, and microelectronics. In addition, such robotic platforms can be used for search and rescue operations, assisted agriculture, environmental monitoring, and exploration of hazardous environments.

The Lab was founded within the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences by Prof. Robert Wood. It houses all the necessary tools to create the micromechatronic components of robotic insects as well as soft robotics, multifunctional materials, and artificial muscles. The Harvard Microrobotics Lab is closely involved with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Prof. Wood is a core faculty member of the Institute.

Lab news:

• Congratulations to Yong-Lae Park who will join the faculty in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Professor (5/2013)
• Prof. Wood will give a plenary talk at ICRA 2013 (5/2013)
• "Controlled Flight of a Biologically Inspired, Insect-Scale Robot" appears in the journal Science. See the SEAS press release (5/2013)
• Congratulations to Nestor Perez-Arancibia who will join the faculty at USC as an Assistant Professor in the department of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering (5/2013)
• Congratulations to Farrell Helbling for winning a 2013 NSF graduate fellowship! (4/2013)
• Congratulations to Sam Felton for winning a 2013 NDSEG fellowship! (4/2013)
• "Flight of the RoboBees" appears in Scientific American (3/2013)
• Microrobotics Lab alumni Pratheev Sreetharan is named one of Technology Review's TR35! (8/2012)
• Prof. Wood is appointed the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences (7/2012)
• "Design and Fabrication of Soft Artificial Skin Using Embedded Microchannels and Liquid Conductors" is the cover article for the August 2012 issue of IEEE Sensors Journal (7/2012)
• Katie Hoffman wins Best Student Paper at BioRob 2012! (6/2012)
• Congratulations to Rebecca Kramer who will join the faculty at Purdue University as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering starting Spring 2013 (6/2012)
• "Monolithic fabrication of millimeter-scale machines" is the cover article for the May 2012 issue of J. Micromechanics and Microengineering (5/2012)
• New NSF Expeditions in Computing awards announced. The Harvard Microrobotics Lab will work with the MIT-led team on "Printable Programmable Machines" (4/2010)
• Congratulations to Mirko Kovac who will join the faculty in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London (4/2010)
• Microrobotics Lab alum Carmel Majidi was named a winner of the 2012 ONR Young Investigator Award! (4/2012)
• Prof. Wood will receive the 2012 NSF Alan T. Waterman award! For details, see the SEAS press release (3/2012)
• Mirko Kovac wins the Best Conference Paper award at the 2011 IEEE Robotics and Biomimetics conference based on his graduate work at EPFL. Nestor Perez-Arancibia and Pakpong Chirarattananon were finalists for Best Paper in Biomimetics (12/2011)
• "Pop-up book MEMS" is the cover article for the Nov. 2011 issue of J. Micromechanics and Microengineering (11/2011)
• Congratulations to Hiroto Tanaka who will join Chiba University as a Research Assistant Professor (9/2011)
• Prof. Wood will give a "Semi-Plenary" talk at IROS 2011 (8/2011)
• Congratulations to Jamie Paik who will join the faculty at EPFL as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering starting Spring 2012 (7/2011)
• Congratulations to Carmel Majidi who will join the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering starting Fall 2011 (4/2011)
• Congratulations to Frank Hammond for winning a 2011 Ford Fellowship! (4/2011)
• Congratulations to Kevin Ma for winning a 2011 NSF graduate fellowship! (4/2011)
• Katie Hoffman wins honorable mention by the Science and the National Science Foundation 2010 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge (2/2011)
• The official Microrobotics Lab YouTube channel has been launched (12/2010)
• Prof. Wood is highlighted as Business Week's innovator in the August 2nd issue. See media page for more details (8/2010)
• 'Aeromechanics of passive rotation in flapping flight' appears in J. Fluid Mechanics (7/2010)
• 'Programmable matter by folding' appears in PNAS (7/2010)
• Pratheev Sreetharan wins Best Student Paper at RSS 2010! (6/2010)
• The Harvard Microrobotics Lab will be participating in the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C. on October 23rd-24th, 2010. See our outreach page for details
• Congratulations to Pratheev Sreetharan and Pierre-Emile Duhamel for winning 2010 NSF graduate fellowships! (4/2010)
• Congratulations to Andy Baisch and Pratheev Sreetharan for winning 2010 NDSEG fellowships! (4/2010)

Lab contact information

4th floor, 60 Oxford St
(617) 384-7892

Our lab is located in the northeast corner of Harvard's Cambridge campus. See below for a map: