UCI Robot Ecology Lab inspired by nature
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Suspended on a cable fixed between two trees in front of the Engineering Gateway building on UC Irvine’s campus hangs the RaccoonBot. And well, he’s just adorable.
“The ‘cute factor’ wasn’t just a design choice — it was a strategic one,” said Efraín Méndez, a mechatronics engineer with a doctorate in engineering sciences focused in robotics and a postdoctoral researcher in the UCI Robot Ecology Lab who spearheaded the RaccoonBot project.
“We wanted RaccoonBot to feel approachable and spark curiosity, especially in younger audiences or people who may not typically engage with robotics or environmental monitoring. By giving it an animal-inspired, friendly appearance, we turned it into more than just a machine — it became a character that invites interaction and storytelling.”
He said that emotional connection helps make their mission at the lab more relatable. The mission, put simply, is to study the relationship between robot and its environment in the context of coordinating large teams of robots — also known as swarm robotics. Their research is based in the study of how animals — like birds and fish that naturally swarm — function in their habitats. Much of their robotics research is inspired by nature.
In practice, the mission is much more complex, requiring refined skillsets, high levels of educational backgrounds, creativity and collaboration.
“My research for a long time has been on swarm robotics, so large teams of robots doing interesting things together. This could be robots in the air, robots on the ground or even robots underwater, and I’ve been looking at questions with fleets of self-driving cars or fleets of drones in the air that are trying to find something or even precision agriculture where you have fleets of these self-driving tractors out on the farm field,” said Magnus Egerstedt, UCI dean of engineering and director of the UCI Robot Ecology Lab. “I’ve always been fascinated by biology. … I’ve worked a lot with biologists because I think the way fish school or birds flock, I think that’s absolutely mesmerizing.”
He said this is relevant to how large teams of robots should coordinate and this connection to biology is what led to the idea of using robots out in nature for the purpose of environmental monitoring.
“The Robot Ecology Lab became the Robot Ecology Lab when we realized that these robots are in essence, living out in nature and they’re part of an ecosystem, and we started thinking about them almost like living organisms because they have to harvest energy while they’re out there, just like animals have to harvest food,” Egerstedt said. “The whole kind of purpose now in the Robot Ecology Lab is teams of robots out in nature, trying to figure out what’s going on with the environment.”
Egerstedt formed the lab four years ago when he came to UCI from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he spent 20 years and ran a more traditional robotics lab. There are currently 14 students working in the UCI Robot Ecology Lab, a mix of undergraduates, post-graduates and postdoctoral researchers. He said at any given time in the lab, they have undergrads and post-grads from a variety of majors. The postdoctoral researchers already obtained their degrees and now are sharpening their scientific skills for potential future faculty or research positions.
“One of the things that’s charming about robotics is it has to be multidisciplinary,” Egerstedt said. “It’s not mechanical engineering. It’s not computer science. It’s not electrical engineering. It’s all of it.”
Inside the Lab
Alex Nguyen is a doctoral student with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering who’s been working in the lab since 2022.
“We want to develop the theories, develop the algorithms, and then we want to see, OK anything can work in simulation. But does it actually work on real robots, real hardware?” Nguyen said. “And that’s where the Robotarium comes in where you just see if what we came up with actually works in real life.”
Entering the lab, located inside UCI’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building, visitors can see the Robotarium through a large glass wall before going inside. It’s a large, white testing bed taking up most of one room where a fleet of small homogeneous robots — called GRITSBots — can move around. Through algorithms, the GRITSBots can perform tasks like autonomously moving around each other to avoid collision and also moving in formation. But there are other robots — like the TurtleBot that can be used to carry other robots and the DJI RoboMaster EP that can pick up and place objects.
Nguyen said he is working on a project that explores how different types of robots — heterogenous robots — can do new things that they otherwise could not do individually, by working together.
“One project that I can [think] of is the TurtleBot, so having the TurtleBot carry robots across unpassable regions,” Nguyen said. “Maybe the robot doesn’t have the correct wheels or it can’t go across certain terrains. So the TurtleBot has the correct capabilities to be able to ferry the robot across that.”
Though the TurtleBot is manufactured by a company outside the lab, the GRITSBots have electronic circuitry designed in-house and contain components from various vendors, which are assembled and programmed by students in the lab.
“Kind of like IKEA furniture, for example,” Nguyen said. “We also have these lab-bonding sessions. We just manufacture robots together and just have a good time. All these robots were the work of everyone in the lab.”
Doctoral student Riwa Karam obtained her bachelor’s of science degree in computer engineering in Lebanon and has been part of the Robot Ecology Lab for two years. She also has a background in software development, systems and machine learning.
“For me, growing up, I was always interested in robots and knowing how to make things move, whether computers or cars or any type of robot. I was always inspired by reading or watching movies,” she said. “I started doing my own projects at home. I find it fun.”
Karam said the various robots in the lab are there to test the algorithms developed for their research. She said her first project at the lab was based on an algorithm of formation control. The idea was to draw something and the robots could execute what was drawn by forming themselves into that initial drawing.
“So essentially it’s like deploying art into a work space where the robots can be deployed,” she said.
Though she said now her research is shifting into looking at collaboration between teams of robots.
“How can multiple teams of robots collaborate and how to define that collaboration?” she said.
Her current research has the potential application of putting out wildfires by deploying teams of robots in different regions — with teams sacrificing their own robots by letting them migrate to another team in need, emulating altruistic behavior.
Practical applications
Méndez said the RaccoonBot is currently being tested so it can be fully deployed at Crystal Cove State Park, as part of a partnership with the Crystal Cove Conservancy.
The RaccoonBot’s interior is metallic, made of aluminum, stainless steel and copper, for durability. Its exterior is plastic so that it’s both lightweight and energy-efficient. It’s also equipped with a solar panel and it can transform solar energy into electrical power. At its current location on campus, it moves from one side of the cable to another to find the best position for solar charging. It’s also equipped with an antenna near its tail for uploading monitoring data. The robot can self-lock to protect itself when necessary. Since it’ll be outside and near the ocean, it must be durable for conditions like wind, rain and saltwater. Part of its testing involved shooting rubber balls at it to make sure it could endure a similar assault. Many of its parts were 3D-printed so it could be customized for the needs of Crystal Cove.
“Crystal Cove State Park is a remarkable place — its habitats are diverse and the problems we face in restoring them and protecting them are real,” said Kate Wheeler, president and chief executive of the Crystal Cove Conservancy. “We see the impacts not just of extreme weather and climate change every day on the beaches, but as part of the historic Irvine Ranch, we still have areas in the backcountry — which connects to a vast swath of open space — that have depleted native seed banks and are overgrown with black mustard and other invasives that need to be restored from overgrazing generations ago. The work students do in our programs — including in our collaboration with Robot Ecology Lab — helps us understand what’s happening over time at Crystal Cove so we can better solve those problems.”
She said Crystal Cove has been working with UCI for years now through K-12 STEM education programs that put young students in the field, where they can work alongside real researchers, scientists and engineers, gathering data and testing solutions on problems they don’t know how to solve yet.
“The school of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Education have been partnering with us for more than a decade to ensure our K-12 STEM education programs were rooted in real research and ecological restoration and to ensure they’re educationally rigorous and aligned with the standards California teachers need to meet,” Wheeler said. “As our science programs have grown — to serve more than 10,000 students each year, mostly from Title 1 schools — and we aimed to integrate engineering more deeply in our programs, it was natural for us to partner with UCI engineering to do that.”
She said the Conservancy’s aim with these programs is to inspire and equip the future generation of conservationists, scientists and engineers to care for places such as Crystal Cove. She said Egerstedt and the UCI engineering team have helped the Conservancy build engineering into all of their student programs at Crystal Cove.
“And as he’ll tell you, robots are magic when it comes to building students’ interest and excitement in the work ahead and they show real promise for helping us understand and solve problems by gathering data in places, at times and in ways that people can’t,” she said. “And have you seen RaccoonBot? He’s super cute — so who wouldn’t want to bring him into the work?”
Community outreach with organizations like Crystal Cove Conservancy is another facet of the lab’s work. Egerstedt said he wants to make sure the Robot Ecology Lab connects with other key institutions in Orange County — like the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, where he recently gave a talk about the lab’s work and how to use robots in the ocean. He sees a lot of potential for good with robotics.
“I really believe that we should try to harness technology to do good in the world and to me [connecting robotics to environmental monitoring] is an opportunity to use robotics for something quite compelling,” Egerstedt said.
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