Event
MRC Seminar: Design. Print. Deploy. Enabling Swarm Robotics via Additive Manufacturing
Friday, January 31, 2025
2:00 p.m.
JMP 2116
Design. Print. Deploy. Enabling Swarm Robotics via Additive Manufacturing
Dr. Markus P. Nemitz
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Tufts University
Abstract
Swarm robots offer transformative potential for applications where rapid and efficient coverage of large areas is critical. However, the high cost and fragility of advanced robots, coupled with the limited functionality of affordable alternatives, have historically hindered their large-scale deployment, confining much of swarm robotics research to simulations. While drones have successfully evolved into capable, low-cost swarm robots through commercialization, their fragility and inability to physically interact with the environment have limited their use in contact-based tasks and underwater operations. To address these challenges, our research focuses on the rapid design and fabrication of low-cost, capable, and scalable terrestrial swarm robots using additive manufacturing. In this talk, I will present strategies for creating increasingly intelligent yet affordable robots, advancing the cost-capability trade-off in robotics. I will showcase developments in 3D-printed soft quadrupeds, fluidic actuators, and controllers, exploring their current performance, future potential, and how they bridge the gap between laboratory prototypes and real-world applications. By advancing swarm engineering, we unlock new opportunities for distributed problem solving, such as explosive ordnance disposal, where expendable robots can be produced at a cost lower than the landmines they neutralize.
Biography
Dr. Markus P. Nemitz is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University, where he leads the Nemitz Robotics Group. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 2018 and subsequently trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the Whitesides Research Group at Harvard University until 2020. In 2023, Dr. Nemitz was awarded the NSF CAREER award for his work on 3D-printable robots. He has also secured funding from NSF-RoseHub for robotic landmine detection and from the U.S. Army for developing a robot ecosystem in collaboration with the company NEOEx. Dr. Nemitz has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles in journals, including Science Robotics, Nature Communications, PNAS, Soft Robotics, Advanced Intelligent Systems, and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. His research focuses on swarm engineering, the design and implementation of scalable robotic systems, pushing the boundaries of low-cost intelligence and fully automated robot manufacturing.
