Zhongtao (Tony) Guan

Zhongtao (Tony) Guan is a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science developing autonomous insect-scale aerial robots capable of agile and robust maneuvers. His research addresses a foundational challenge: at the sub-gram scale, every milligram must be carefully allocated among actuation, sensing, and computation, requiring tightly co-designed hardware and controllers. He developed sub-gram hopping robots combining flapping-wing flight with passive leg locomotion, using MATLAB’s Simscape Multibody for high-fidelity dynamics simulation and model predictive control for trajectory optimization in contact-rich environments. To enable onboard sensing, he designed integrated sensor suites on 240-mg boards, achieving the first 10-second autonomous hovering flight at insect scale. Currently, he leads infrastructure development for coordinated multi-robot swarm experiments, upgrading motion capture systems and communication protocols using Speedgoat computers. As a MathWorks Fellow, Tony will advance validation workflows and control algorithms enabling real-world autonomy. His work has the potential to broaden access to quantum mechanical simulations, making rigorous quantum calculations accessible to researchers without specialized computing resources.