Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao

Yi-Hsuan (Nemo) Hsiao is a PhD candidate in electrical engineering and computer science who is developing bumblebee-inspired aerial robots powered by artificial soft muscles, with the goal of achieving resilient robotic flight in cluttered environments. Nemo’s second MathWorks Fellowship will allow him to extend his testing and analysis of a 750 mg robot. During the past year, Nemo has worked extensively with engineers from Speedgoat and MathWorks to solve challenges related to on-board software, and ultimately resolved those challenges, adding many hardware safety designs in the process. After these upgrades, Nemo realized transformative results in the flight arena, successfully demonstrating a 1,000-second flight in his 750 mg robot, a result that is nearly two orders of magnitude longer than most existing sub-gram robots. He has also demonstrated double somersaults with a body angular velocity of 7,000 degrees per second, which is four times faster than the best quadrotor and two times faster than fruit flies. Nemo’s research continues to offer tools and approaches that significantly benefit the MathWorks community and is advancing the next generation of nature-inspired micro-robots.