Microbot Swarm

A swarm that charges, connects and reshapes itself.

Forty-millimetre sealed microbots with no exposed pins. They charge through the shell, talk over a local mesh, and move into the shape you ask for.

40 × 8 mmper unit
0exposed contacts
120 mAhLiPo stick cell

Inside one microbot

A slim shell wraps four layers: a receiver coil, a rigid-flex board, and a cylindrical cell. Everything sits behind a continuous wall, so the unit charges wirelessly and stays sealed. Drag to rotate, or use the slider to pull the layers apart.

The hub is the charger, the brain and the case

Machined cradles hold each bot flush. A transmitter coil sits under every bay, centred on the bot's receiver coil. The hub also runs Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the microphone array that listens for commands.

Say it, and they form it

The hub turns a spoken request into one target position per bot, then broadcasts the targets over the mesh. Try a formation.

Designed to be validated before it is built

ProcessorESP32-S3 Mini per bot; ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 in the hub
Power inTDK WR202020-18M8-G receiver sheet with STWLC38 rectifier and charger
Battery3.7 V, 120 mAh LiPo stick; 50 mA trickle charge ceiling
Sensing6-axis IMU for position and telemetry
NetworkESP-NOW peer-to-peer mesh, no router needed
Hub audioI2S microphone array, 3 W speaker
ShellTough polycarbonate-like resin, SLA printed

Path to a working swarm

  1. ModelShell and hub in CAD; rigid-flex board in KiCad; merged in FreeCAD for collision checks.
  2. SimulateOpenEMS for coil coupling, OpenFOAM for heat in the sealed cavity, Gazebo or PyBullet for swarm motion.
  3. PrototypeSLA shells, folded flex boards, magnetic closure, first hub.
  4. DemonstrateVoice command to formation on real hardware.

Figures are design targets from the internal architecture plan. They have not yet been measured on hardware. The plan also lists an alternative 12 × 45 mm envelope to fit the board and battery; this presentation shows the 40 × 8 mm blueprint.