Assistant/ Associate Specialist - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

University of California at Berkeley; Berkeley (CA); On-site; USD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

University of California at Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab seeks an Assistant/Associate Specialist to design actuation systems for a milli-robot and to develop a miniaturized fluidic pump for driving robot segments and biopsy actuators.

The role includes creating custom micro surgical tooling, documenting results for reports, and collaborating with multidisciplinary team members to advance the project milestones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent international degree.
• Experience with micro-scale actuation and/or soft robotics is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design the actuation system for the milli-robot, enabling omnidirectional articulation and steering.
• Develop a miniaturized fluidic pump capable of driving robot segments and biopsy actuators.
• Create custom micro surgical tooling for soft tissue biopsy integration.
• Document intermediate results for reports and publications; collaborate with project team members.

Skills

Actuation design

Microfluidics

Technical documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent international degree

Job description

The Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley seeks to hire a Assistant/Associate Specialist. The Biomimetic Millisystems Lab works to radically improve milli-robot locomotion capabilities by combining insights from nature with novel fabrication technology. The lab's current research is centered on medical applications of milli-robots.

The goal of this research project is to develop an untethered 5 mm diameter soft crawling robot capable of navigating through tortuous anatomy. The micro-robot will be based on fluidically driven IMPRINT actuators("Multi-Layer LDPE Pouch Robots Enabled by Inkjet-Printed Masking Layers." Advanced Materials Technologies 2025).

Duties:

• Design of the actuation system, including the development of the IMPRINT contraction muscles and the arrangement of the IMPRINT actuators with elastic elements to enable omnidirectional articulation and contraction for steering and locomotion.
• Development of a miniaturized fluidic pump which has sufficient flow and pressure to drive the robot segment, foot, and biopsy actuators.
• Development of custom micro surgical tooling for soft tissue biopsy sampling, which is integrated into the microbot body.

Additional duties include:

• Focused work towards technical milestones
• Complete documentation of intermediate results for reports and publications
• Close cooperation with other project team members.

• Bachelor's degree or any equivalent international degree