In this talk, I will present our recent progress in two main directions. First, I will show that by strategically eliciting the force responses from loose regolith, robots could generate desired ground reaction forces and achieve substantially improved locomotion performance on deformable substrates. Second, I will show that by leveraging the high force transparency of direct-drive actuators, robots can use their legs as proprioceptive sensors to opportunistically determine the terramechanical properties of regolith from every step.

Scaling laws are now often seen as a key ingredient on the path toward general intelligence. But in robotics, progress is slowed by one major obstacle: the lack of abundant, high-quality data. In this talk, I introduce a data pyramid strategy designed to tackle this challenge by making the most of diverse data sources. The idea is simple but powerful: combine internet-scale datasets, human teleoperation data, and robot-collected experiences so that each strengthens and fills in the gaps of the others.

Effective delivery of therapeutics remains a central challenge in medicine, particularly when interventions must navigate complex and dynamic biological environments. Magnetic microrobots offer a promising solution, providing untethered locomotion and the ability to actively steer toward target sites. Among actuation strategies, rotational magnetic fields provide scalable torque-based propulsion, enabling continuous motion and agile navigation even under physiologically relevant flow conditions. In this presentation, I will highlight two complementary microrobotic platforms. Biohybrid microrobots based on bacteria combine autonomous chemotactic sensing with external torque-based control, allowing them to navigate tissues while maintaining responsiveness to applied magnetic fields. Synthetic bioinspired microrobots, constructed from biodegradable hydrogels with anisotropic magnetic nanoparticle patterns, exploit torque-driven propulsion to achieve efficient transport and directional control in vascular models and other constrained environments. To further improve targeting, I will introduce a strategy for spatially restricting rotating magnetic fields, focusing torque delivery to specific regions to enhance precision and reduce off-target effects. Complementing this, we integrate inductive feedback for real-time tracking, capturing magnetic phase lag and swarm synchronization to enable closed-loop control of microrobotic motion and collective behavior. Together, these advances—from torque-driven actuation and programmable magnetic design to spatially focused control and real-time feedback—demonstrate a versatile, scalable approach for microscale robotic systems in targeted therapeutics, paving the way toward clinical translation.

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