Bradley James Nelson (born 16 May 1962) is an American roboticist and entrepreneur. He has been the Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

since 2002 and is known for his research in

microrobotics Microbotics (or microrobotics) is the field of miniature robotics, in particular mobile robots with characteristic dimensions less than 1 mm. The term can also be used for robots capable of handling micrometer size components. History Microb ...

, nanorobotics, and

medical robotics A medical robot is a robot used in the medical sciences. They include surgical robots. These are in most telemanipulators, which use the surgeon's activators on one side to control the "effector" on the other side. Types * Surgical robots: These ...

. In 2005, Nelson was chosen as one of ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

''s top 50 leaders in science and technology for his work on practical applications of

nanotubes file:Chiraltube.png, A scanning tunneling microscopy image of a single-walled carbon nanotube file:Kohlenstoffnanoroehre Animation.gif, Rotating single-walled zigzag carbon nanotube A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters ...

. In 2019 he received the IEEE RAS Pioneer Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, "In recognition of outstanding contributions in micro and nano robotics". He is a co-founder of Aeon Scientific AG, Femtotools AG, OphthoRobotics AG, Magnes AG, Oxyle AG, and MagnebotiX AG.

Education

* Ph.D. in Robotics (Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science),

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, 1995 * M.S. in Mechanical Engineering,

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, 1987 * B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1984, University Honors/Bronze Tablet.

Career

Nelson held positions at

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

and at

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

, and served with the United States Peace Corps in

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

. After earning his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995, Nelson became an Assistant Professor at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

, He moved to the University of Minnesota as an Associate Professor in 1998. In 2002 Nelson became a Full Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

Research

Nelson has over thirty years of experience in the field of robotics. He specializes in nanotechnology and the development of microscopic robots for use in medicine and other applications. He is particularly known for his work in developing soft, biologically-inspired flexible architectures. In early research at ETH Zurich, researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), led by Nelson, developed a robot to play nanosoccer on a field of play the size of a grain of rice. The international RoboCup Nanogram demonstration events were supported by the U.S.

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

(NIST) in 2007, 2008, and 2009. The goal was to develop microrobots that could perform soccer related tasks, as a demonstration of the feasibility of fabricating

Microelectromechanical systems Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), also written as micro-electro-mechanical systems (or microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems) and the related micromechatronics and microsystems constitute the technology of microscopic devices, ...

(MEMS) on semiconductor chips. Zurich's resonant magnetic robot, or "Magmite", was long and could be driven forward, put into reverse, and turn left and right. Magnetic fields were used to move the robot on a flat surface. ETH Zurich placed first in the 2007 RoboCup Nanogram Competition and was one of two teams to perform successfully in the 2009 competition. In 2009, Nelson and his research team were recognized by

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

for creating the “most advanced mini robot for medical use”, a robot about long with swirling flagella, constructed of semiconductor materials and controlled by a magnetic field. Like a number of Nelson's robots, the

rod-shaped A bacillus (), also called a bacilliform bacterium or often just a rod (when the context makes the sense clear), is a rod-shaped bacterium or archaeon. Bacilli are found in many different taxonomic groups of bacteria. However, the name ''Bacillu ...

microrobot was inspired by a biological form, in this case

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

bacteria. Magnetic fields are used to affect the orientation of the robot's "

flagella A flagellum (; ) is a hairlike appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal sperm cells, and from a wide range of microorganisms to provide motility. Many protists with flagella are termed as flagellates. A microorganism may have f ...

", causing it to move. External magnetic fields are generated using eight electromagnets which allow the operator of the microrobot to move it along the x, y and z-axes in any desired direction. Development of

nanoelectromechanical systems Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) are a class of devices integrating electrical and mechanical functionality on the nanoscale. NEMS form the next logical miniaturization step from so-called microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS devices. NEMS ...

(NEMS) can require novel materials and may involve unique effects which occur at a nanoscale, Nelson's rod-shaped robots required the development of a material that would be highly sensitive to magnetic fields, made by combining the elements

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...

and samarium. Such robots have been tested within the vitreous humor of the

eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

to deliver drugs to the

retina The retina (from la, rete "net") is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which then ...

. Microrobots have also been specialized to report oxygen levels in the retina by releasing a fluorescent dye that fades at a rate that indicates the presence of oxygen. Other possible areas that have been suggested for medical applications include the

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...

, urinary tract,

small intestine The small intestine or small bowel is an organ in the gastrointestinal tract where most of the absorption of nutrients from food takes place. It lies between the stomach and large intestine, and receives bile and pancreatic juice through the p ...

and the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

, which are difficult to reach. Water treatment and environmental cleanup are also possible application areas where nanobots could be used. The use of specialized

3-D printers 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

makes it possible to develop new types of materials for use in microrobots such as

polymers A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...

. As of 2015, Nelson and Christofer Hierold collaborated to develop a robot made from a biocompatible

biopolymer Biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. Like other polymers, biopolymers consist of monomeric units that are covalently bonded in chains to form larger molecules. There are three main classes of biopolymers, cl ...

that can dissolve in the body once the robot's task is completed. In collaboration with a team led by Selman Sakar of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nelson's team has developed soft-architecture microswimmer robots whose design incorporates folding techniques similar to Japanese origami. The design mimics the ability of micro-organisms to change shape in response to changing environmental conditions. The robot is made up of a multilayered structure of various hydrogels, which respond differentially to environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, or light. In response to such changes, the biopolymers expand or contract, causing the robot to change shape. The design was inspired by ''

Trypanosoma brucei ''Trypanosoma brucei'' is a species of parasitic Kinetoplastida, kinetoplastid belonging to the genus ''Trypanosoma'' that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclus ...

'' bacterium, the cause of sleeping sickness. The bacterium has a long narrow shape for moving through bodily fluids and a stubby, compact shape which it reaches its target area. In collaboration with Daniel Ahmed of ETH Zurich, Nelson has developed magnetic beads whose movement can be guided against a fluid current. The beads are made of a hydrogel nanocomposite containing particles of

iron oxide Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. All are black magnetic solids. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of whic ...

and a

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

. Each bead has a diameter of . A "swarm" or cluster of beads between and micrometres wide can be guided with a magnetic controller. Bead swarms have been studied using liquid-filled glass tubes to similulate the types of conditions that might be found in blood vessels to micrometres thick. In the same way that someone travelling up a river might hug the banks where the current is slower, the scientists operating the microbeads keep them near the sides of the glass tubes. They use

ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequency, frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing range, hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hea ...

to move the microbead cluster toward the wall of the tube, and a rotating magnetic field to move the swarm against the current. Nelson's microrobotic systems have also been used by Hannes Vogler, Ueli Grossniklaus and other researchers in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at Zurich to study the trapping mechanism of Venus flytrap ('' Dionaea muscipula''). Researchers discovered a previously unknown mechanism by which the plant traps prey, with a single slow touch triggering the fly trap to close. They were able to mathematically model the angular deflection and velocity thresholds involved in the snapping mechanism.

Honors and awards

Nelson has received a number of awards for his work in robotics, nanotechnology and biomedicine. * 2020 Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences * 2019 IEEE RAS Pioneer Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, "In recognition of outstanding contributions in micro and nano robotics" * 2016

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

Advanced Grant (Soft Micro Robotics, or SOMBOT) * 2014 First Place: Mobile MicroRobot Challenge, ICRA * 2012 Guinness Book of World Records for "Most Advanced Mini Robot for Medical Use." * 2011 European Research Council Advanced Grant (Microrobotics and Nanomedicine, BOTMED) * 2011 IEEE Fellow, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine * 2010 ASME Fellow,

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

* 2009 ETH Zurich Team, First Place: RoboCup Nanogram Soccer * 2007 ETH Zurich Team, First Place: RoboCup Nanogram Soccer * 2005 Scientific American 50: SA 50 Winners and Contributors, ''

'' * 1999 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship in Mechanical engineering, University of Minnesota * 202
Grand Hamdan International Award - AI in Healthcare

Bibliography

Books

Papers

Nelson's research group has won more than a dozen best paper awards at various international conferences and in international journals. Paper awards given are indicated after the citation information. * * * - 2015 T-ASE Best New Application Paper Award, IEEE CASE * - Best Paper Award in medical robotics at ICRA 2014 * * - 2013 Journal of Laboratory Automation Ten Award, JALA Ten * * * * - 2014 Best Medical Robotics Paper Award, ICRA

References

External links

Oral History

"BRAD NELSON: An Interview Conducted by Peter Asaro"
IEEE History Center, 17 July 2011. Interview #738 for Indiana University and IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Talks & media

TEDx Zurich, 2012

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Bradley 1962 births Living people American roboticists Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni