Microrobot developed by Jose at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City.

In my Licentiate’s degree I developed a modular microrobot as a platform to carry out artificial intelligence research on collaborative work inspired on the collective behavior of social insects. For this platform I developed a new miniaturization technique based on the concentric accommodation of the mechanical parts, electronic boards and modules of the robot, just like the concentric layers of an onion. This technique allowed for maximum utilization of space and resulted in a very compact device. The work progressed and In 2004 was awarded a full patent (IMPI 219191).


Microrobot with attached modules for optical line tracking and video capture and transmission.

The microrobot, illustrated above, comprised several subsystems and modules, such as an infrared interface, a 5-element optical sensor for line tracking, a flash programmable microcontroller, B&W NTSC videocamera, RF video transmitter, rechargeable batteries, step-up power converters, 150 MHz radio receiver and 470 MHz radio transmitter. Equipped with this circuitry the robot was capable of receiving instructions for direction and velocity from a remotest computer and transmit of collected sensor data. A three-wheel mechanical module was elaborated for the displacement of the robot on flat surfaces. The electronic boards were custom-designed and built entirely with surface mount components soldered by hand.

At the time I developed this robot the prefix ‘micro’ was subjective. Today the prefixes for small robots follow a relatively well established standard. According to that standard this is a ‘minirobot’ as it has dimensionsns less than 10 cm. But rather than using the prefix ‘micro’ to describe the size of the robot I meant to describe its small usage of power (1 W) and small program memory requirements. These factors ended up reducing size and extending the lifetime of the batteries for 1 hr of continuous displacement at medium speed.

With the MEMS technology and advances in electronics packaging mini, milli and microrobots are finding important applications in medicine, for example in the exploration of the digestive tract.