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About

Conor K. Trygstad is a leading researcher in microrobotics, specializing in the design and control of ultra-lightweight, bioinspired actuators and swimmers. His work centers on shape-memory alloy (SMA)-based actuation, where he has made pioneering contributions to the development of fast, low-mass actuators for millimeter-scale robots. Trygstad introduced the first 1-mg fast unimorph SMA actuator (2023, 9 citations), a breakthrough that enabled a new class of microrobots, and later advanced this with a 10-mg bimorph design (2024, 4 citations), demonstrating improved performance and feedforward control. His impact extends to bioinspired locomotion, most notably through the VLEIBot (2024, 5 citations), a 45-mg swimming microrobot inspired by eel-like anguilliform propulsion, and the FRISSHBot (2025, 2 citations), a 59-mg swimmer with closed-loop feedback control for two-dimensional steering. These achievements showcase his ability to merge materials science, microfabrication, and control theory to push the boundaries of what is possible at the milligram scale. Trygstad’s work is foundational for future applications in medical devices, environmental monitoring, and swarm robotics.