Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

David Blaauw is a prominent researcher in ultra-low-power CMOS design and micro-robotics, whose work sits at the intersection of integrated circuit design, autonomous systems, and miniaturized computing. His research has pioneered the development of fully integrated, sub-millimeter robotic systems capable of sensing, processing, communicating, and actuating — a long-sought frontier in robotics that has historically been constrained by the unique physics of the microscale. Among his most notable contributions is RoboVisio, a domain-specific vision SoC fabricated in 22nm technology that achieves remarkable energy efficiency (3.5 TOPS/W) while enabling fully on-chip intelligence through 2MB embedded MRAM — eliminating the need for off-chip weight storage in autonomous micro-robot navigation. His team has also advanced programmable matter, developing high-voltage generation circuits for electrostatic actuation of mm-scale quasi-spherical robots capable of forming arbitrary 3D structures autonomously. With papers accumulating dozens of citations within just a few years of publication, Blaauw's work is rapidly shaping next-generation micro-robotic platforms. His integrated systems — combining energy harvesting, sensing, computation, and actuation within footprints as small as 210×340×50 μm — represent landmark achievements in the miniaturization of fully autonomous intelligent systems.