brad nelson from iris [eth zürich, switzerland] is one of the world's leading researchers in a new field he calls biomicrorobotics.
nelson's lab won the 2007 robocup nanogram competition [ 1 ][ 2 ], a challenge where teams of students and researchers construct microscopic robots that will compete against each other in soccer-related agility drills. these robots will measure a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers in their largest dimension and will have masses ranging from a few nanograms to a few hundred nanograms. they will operate under an optical microscope and can be controlled by off-board electronics using visual feedback. to win the competition, a robot must be fast, agile, and capable of manipulating objects in the micro-world.nelson recently gave an epfl's talking robots podcast interview.