An Optically Programmable SoC for an Autonomous Mobile mm(3)-Sized Microrobot

作者：Casanova Raimon^*; Arbat Anna; Alonso Oscar; Sanuy Andreu; C****s Joan; Dieguez Angel

来源：IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I-Regular Papers, 2011, 58(11): 2673-2685.

DOI：10.1109/TCSI.2011.2143210

• Hardware/software partition
• low power
• microrobot
• system on chip

Recent progresses in miniaturization of sensors and actuators have yielded to the first attempt to create an mm(3)-sized autonomous robot with sensing capabilities called I-SWARM. The robot is conceived to interact with other I-SWARM robots in order to create a robotic swarm. It is provided with a locomotion unit, an infrared communication system, a contact sensor, solar cells for powering, and a system on chip (SoC) that acts as the brain of the robot. All these components are mounted over a flexible printed circuit board, being I-SWARM a real system in package (SiP). The SoC communicates with other I-SWARMs, sense its environment, processes data and takes decisions, as for example moving, with less than 1.5 mW. Different electronic circuits (power electronics, buffers, ADCs, DACs, control units, analog transducers, and even an oscillator) have been embedded in the SoC due to the limited area, less than 3 x 3 mm(2). The SoC is reprogrammable optically in order to change the behavior of the microrobot.

• 出版日期2011-11