Switzerland / 20 employees

Research at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems leverages advanced robotics for creating intelligent machines that operate at micron and nanometer scales. IRIS develops the tools and processes required to fabricate and assemble micron sized robots and nanometer scale robotic components. Many of these systems are used for robotic exploration within biological domains, such as in the investigation of molecular structures, cellular systems, and complex organism behavior. IRIS research skills cover a broad range of mechanical engineering including robotics, controls, computer vision, micro-fabrication, design and simulation, manufacturing, modelling, and biomedical technologies.

Brad Nelson is the Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zürich. His primary research direction lies in extending robotics research into emerging areas of science and engineering, and his main research topics are in microrobotics and nanorobotics.
He has been awarded a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and is a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the McKnight Presidential Fellows Award, and the Bronze Tablet. He was elected as a Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Lecturer in 2003 has been a finalist for and/or won best paper awards at major robotics conferences and journals in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. He was named to the 2005 "Scientific American 50", Scientific American magazine's annual list recognizing fifty outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology from the past year for his efforts in nanotube manufacturing. His lab won the 2007 RoboCup Nanogram Competition, the first year the event was held.
Professor Nelson serves on or has been a member of the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, the IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, the Journal of Micromechatronics, the Journal of Optomechatronics, and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. He has chaired several international workshops and conferences, has served as the head of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering from 2005-2007, and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ETH Electron Microscopy Center (EMEZ).

Bradley Nelson : bnelson@ethz.ch

Didi Xu received the B. Eng degree in the Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering from Tianjian University, China in 2003, the MPhil degree in the Mechanical Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and technology, in 2006. Since November 2006, she has started her Ph.D. studies on Nanorobotics at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), ETH Zurich.
Her current research interests include theoretical and experimental investigations on assembling carbon nanotubes under electric/magnetic field, and then developing and building functional nanodevices based on CNTs for biological, fluidic, and telecommunications applications.