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About

Miana Smith is a researcher at the intersection of modular robotics, autonomous assembly, and generative AI-driven fabrication. Her work focuses on designing intelligent robotic systems capable of self-replication, reconfiguration, and scalable construction — pushing the boundaries of what automated manufacturing can achieve. Smith's most influential contribution, "Self-replicating hierarchical modular robotic swarms" (2022, 49 citations), introduced a groundbreaking framework for swarm robotics that addresses the longstanding efficiency challenges of scaling modular systems, particularly around path planning and travel time. This work established her as a significant voice in reconfigurable robotics research. Building on this foundation, her more recent research bridges physical robotics with artificial intelligence. Her 2025 papers explore how 3D generative AI and natural language interfaces can democratize fabrication, enabling people without specialized expertise to design and produce physical objects — a vision that integrates accessibility, sustainability, and real-world manufacturing constraints into a single pipeline. Her 2024 work on self-reconfigurable robots for discrete lattice assembly further demonstrates her commitment to scalable, autonomous construction systems where robots can reproduce and parallelize their own workflows. Collectively, Smith's research is shaping the future of intelligent, accessible, and self-sufficient robotic fabrication.