Papers
39
Total Citations
2,969
H-Index
22
About
Sawyer B. Fuller is a pioneering roboticist whose work sits at the captivating intersection of biology, engineering, and autonomous systems, with a primary focus on insect-scale aerial robotics. Based at the University of Washington, Fuller has made transformative contributions to the design, actuation, and control of miniaturized flying robots, drawing deep inspiration from the remarkable capabilities of insects like flies and bees. His most celebrated work contributed to the landmark RoboBee project, including demonstrating controlled flight of a biologically inspired insect-scale robot (over 1,100 citations) and enabling perching via switchable electrostatic adhesion (402 citations) — solutions that address fundamental challenges of flight endurance at small scales. Fuller's lab achieved a significant milestone with the lightest wireless flying robot ever demonstrated, a 190 mg laser-powered vehicle that shed the tethers constraining earlier designs. His research extends to onboard insect-inspired vision systems, bio-hybrid odor-guided navigation, and insect-inspired AI for constrained autonomous platforms. Fuller's body of work, accumulating well over 2,000 citations, has established him as a leading voice in microrobotics, consistently pushing the boundaries of what is mechanically and computationally possible at scales previously thought insurmountable.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Controlled Flight of a Biologically Inspired, Insect-Scale Robot1,102 citations · 2013
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- 5Insect-inspired AI for autonomous robots122 citations · 2022
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- 7Wireless steerable vision for live insects and insect-scale robots101 citations · 2020
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- 10A bio-hybrid odor-guided autonomous palm-sized air vehicle64 citations · 2020