Ronald S. Fearing

Larger Photo

Contact Information

545P Cory Hall

tel: 510-642-9193

Office Hours

by appt

Links

Personal Homepage

Publications

Dissertations

Research Support

Monica Naputi
mnaputi@berkeley.edu

Biography

Ronald Fearing is John William MacKay, Jr. Electrical Engineering Professor Emeritus
in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at
Univ. of California, Berkeley, which he joined in Jan. 1988. His current research interests are in milli-robotics, including flying and crawling milli-robots, parallel nano-grasping (gecko adhesion), micro-assembly, and rapid prototyping. He has worked in tactile sensing, teletaction, and dextrous manipulation. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford in EE (1988) and S.B. and S.M. in EECS from MIT (1983). He received the Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1991, and Bakar Fellows Spark Award in 2023 and is the co-inventor on 21 US and international patents.

Education

1988, Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

1983, S.B. and S.M., Electrical Engineering Computer Science, MIT

Research Areas

Control, Intelligent Systems, and Robotics (CIR)

Biosystems & Computational Biology (BIO)

Research Centers

Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR)

Biomimetic Millisystems Lab

Center for Interdisciplinary Biological Inspiration in Education and Research (CiBER)

CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

Robotics and Intelligent Machines Laboratory

B. Nemsick, A. Buchan, A. Nagabandi, R. S. Fearing, and A. Zakhor, "Cooperative Inchworm Localization with a Low Cost Team," in International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017.
A. Buchan, D. Haldane, and R. S. Fearing, "Automatic identification of dynamic piecewise affine models for a running robot," in Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, 2013, pp. 5600-5607.
A. Buchan, J. Bachrach, and R. S. Fearing, "Towards a minimal architecture for a printable, modular, and robust sensing skin," in Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, 2012, pp. 33-38.
E. Steltz, M. Seeman, S. Avadhanula, and R. S. Fearing, "Power electronics design choice for piezoelectric microrobots," in Proc. 2006 IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2006, pp. 1322-1328.
K. Autumn, C. Majidi, R. E. Groff, A. Dittmore, and R. S. Fearing, "Effective elastic modulus of isolated gecko setal arrays," J. Experimental Biology, vol. 209, no. 18, pp. 3558-3568, Sep. 2006.
C. Majidi, R. E. Groff, Y. Maeno, B. Schubert, S. Baek, B. Bush, R. Maboudian, N. Gravish, M. Wilkinson, K. Autumn, and R. S. Fearing, "High friction from a stiff polymer using microfiber arrays," Physical Review Letters, vol. 97, no. 7, pp. 076103-1-4, Aug. 2006.
M. Spenko, M. Cutkosky, C. Majidi, R. S. Fearing, R. Groff, and K. Autumn, "Foot design and integration for bioinspired climbing robots," in Proc. SPIE: Unmanned Systems Technology VIII, G. R. Gerhart, C. M. Shoemaker, and D. W. Gage, Eds., Vol. 6230, Bellingham, WA: SPIE, 2006, pp. 19-1-12.
A. M. Hoover, S. Avadhanula, R. E. Groff, and R. S. Fearing, "A rapidly prototyped 2-axis positioning stage for microassembly using large displacement compliant mechanisms," in Proc. 2006 IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2006, pp. 289-295.
R. Sahai, S. Avadhanula, R. Groff, E. Steltz, R. Wood, and R. S. Fearing, "Towards a 3g crawling robot through the integration of microrobot technologies," in Proc. 2006 Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (CRA 2006), Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2006, pp. 296-302.
R. J. Wood, S. Avadhanula, E. Steltz, M. Seeman, J. Entwistle, A. Bachrach, G. Barrows, S. R. Sanders, and R. S. Fearing, "Design, fabrication and initial results of a 2g autonomous glider," in Proc. 31st Annual Conf. of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2005), Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2005, pp. 1870-1877.
C. S. Majidi, R. E. Groff, and R. S. Fearing, "Attachment of fiber array adhesive through side contact," J. Applied Physics, vol. 98, no. 10, pp. 103521-1-5, Nov. 2005.
R. J. Wood, E. Steltz, and R. S. Fearing, "Optimal energy density piezoelectric bending actuators," Sensors and Actuators A, vol. 119, no. 2, pp. 476-488, April 2005.
C. Majidi, R. Groff, and R. S. Fearing, "Clumping and packing of hair arrays manufactured by nanocasting," in Proc. 2004 ASME Intl. Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE '04)--Winter Meeting, New York, NY: ASME, 2004, pp. 6 pp.
J. Yan and R. S. Fearing, "Wing force map characterization and simulation for the micromechanical flying insect," in Proc. 2003 IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Vol. 2, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2003, pp. 1343-1349.
W. Wu, L. Shenato, R. J. Wood, and R. S. Fearing, "Biomimetic sensor suite for flight control of a micromechanical flying insect: Design and experimental results," in Proc. 2003 IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2003), Vol. 1, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2003, pp. 1146-1151.
R. J. Wood, S. Avadhanula, M. Menon, and R. S. Fearing, "Microrobotics using composite materials: The micromechanical flying insect thorax," in Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 2, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2003, pp. 1842-1849.
M. Sitti and R. S. Fearing, "Synthetic gecko foot-hair micro/nano-structures as dry adhesives," J. Adhesion Science and Technology, vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 1055-1073, Aug. 2003.
D. Campolo, M. Sitti, and R. S. Fearing, "Efficient charge recovery method for driving piezoelectric actuators with quasi-square waves," IEEE Trans. Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 237-244, March 2003.
M. Moll, K. Goldberg, M. A. Erdmann, and R. S. Fearing, "Orienting micro-scale parts with squeeze and roll primitives," in Proc. 2002 IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 2, Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2002, pp. 1931-1936.
E. Shimada, J. A. Thompson, J. Yan, R. Wood, and R. S. Fearing, "Prototyping millirobots using dextrous microassembly and folding," in Proc. 2000 ASME Intl. Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition: Symp. on Microrobotics, Vol. 69-2, New York, NY: ASME, 2000, pp. 933-940.

Bakar Fellows Spark Award, 2023
NSF Presidential Young Investigator (PYI), 1991

Ronald S. Fearing: Faculty Home Page