An Energy-Autonomous Distributed Water Strider by High-Voltaged Standard VLSI and MEMS Integration

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23686053
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Electron device/Electronic equipment
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: MITA Yoshio 東京大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (40323472)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: マイクロマシン / CMOS-MEMS / VLSI / ポストプロセス / オンチップ太陽電池 / 自律分散システム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, the applicant attemped to realize an energy autonomous, which means that harvesting energy in nature to electricity, water striding microrobot. The research was inspired by water-striding tiny insects in nature, and attempted to realize cooperative functions by independent tiny agents. The new philosophical contribution by the research is the idea of autonomous distibuted system by self-moving micro agents. By means of such "top-down" research, a critical advancement in VLSI integrated MEMS technology was achieved. The device technology proven by this Kakenhi research includes a VLSI on-chip high-voltage generating solar cells, that produces high voltage which is beyond the physical limit of Silicon material, thanks to CMOS-MEMS post-process. A new energy and information transfer scheme was also demonstrated with CMOS integrated MEMS devices.

Free Research Field

マイクロマシン