Krystal Lan
MIT Department: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Yufeng Kevin Chen
Research Supervisor: Suhan Kim
Undergraduate Institution: John Hopkins University
Hometown: Cupertino, California
Website: LinkedIn
Biography
Krystal Lan is a senior at Johns Hopkins University studying Mechanical Engineering with minors in Computer Science and Robotics. Her research interests involve innovation at the intersection of engineering and biomechanics, especially through human augmentation technologies such as wearable health devices and assistive robotic systems. As an intern in the Soft and Micro Robotics Lab at MIT, she designed and fabricated lightweight actuators for insect-scale aerial robots. After her undergraduate studies, she plans to pursue a PhD and conduct research in biomechatronics, with a focus on biosensing and controls. Krystal’s passion for finding ways to improve human performance and prevent injury stems from her athletic background and is rooted in her role as Head Personal Trainer at her university. Looking to the future, she has a vision to emerge as a woman leading the way in developing augmentation technologies to unlock human performance and enhance quality of life for all.
Abstract
Design of a Lightweight Rotary Actuator for Insect-Scale Aerial Robots
Krystal Lan1, Suhan Kim2 and Yufeng (Kevin) Chen2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
2Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
An aerial insect’s ability to nimbly navigate cluttered natural environments and withstand in-flight collisions proves their exceptional flight capabilities. Driven by the potential applications of such capabilities, the Soft and Micro Robotics Laboratory at MIT developed a sub-gram aerial robot solely driven by soft actuators. However, the current robot wing design utilizes a back-and-forth flapping motion, which has less efficiency than rotary propeller systems. Thus, the focus of my summer research project was to design a lightweight rotary actuator and shift the flight mechanism from the flapping motion to a propeller-like motion such as one in a drone. Achieving this goal involves first choosing a method that translates linear to rotational motion, then defining critical values such as lengths and radii of components to do kinematic calculations. After simulating the design in MATLAB to ensure functionality, CAD modeling was done via SolidWorks with fabrication to follow. These steps ensured that a small-scale rotatory actuator powered by a soft actuator was successfully designed and can be used in future projects.
