Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Johannes James is a pioneering roboticist whose work pushes the boundaries of miniaturization, focusing on the design, fabrication, and autonomy of insect-scale aerial robots. His primary research areas include micro-robotics, flapping-wing flight, onboard sensing, and power electronics for sub-gram vehicles. James’s most celebrated contribution is the 2018 demonstration of the lightest wireless robot to fly—a 190 mg laser-powered aerial vehicle, which marked a critical milestone in achieving flight autonomy for insect-sized machines. This work has garnered 122 citations and is widely recognized for overcoming the severe weight constraints that had previously necessitated wire tethers. He further advanced the field by integrating a custom-built onboard camera and neural network into an insect-sized robot, enabling it to classify and respond to visual input without off-board computation—a paper cited 19 times for its foundational approach to onboard autonomy. James also developed a steerable wireless vision system for live insects and robots (101 citations), and created the RoboFly platform, which demonstrated multi-modal locomotion including flight, ground, and water surface travel. His high-voltage power electronics unit for modulating wing thrust (5 citations) addresses a key engineering bottleneck. Through these innovations, James has established himself as a leader in achieving true autonomy for the world’s smallest flying robots.