What's in a name?
Thinking of a name for a research laboratory is not so easy since almost all of the really good names are already taken! We want to convey a sense of what we're about without getting terribly specific. We do some robotics and manufacturing-related things, so it might be logical to include these subjects in our name. But the kind of robotics we do is not really in the academic mainstream, and manufacturing doesn't really hit the target either. We really want to advance the art in intelligent electromechanical systems in a way that will have a positive impact on the world. We want to increase the precision of robots to the micrometer level and below while greatly reducing their size -- hence the reference to "micro." We are interested in performance regimes where subtleties of motion dynamics play a significant role, and where control must accurately account for these dynamics -- hence the reference to "dynamic." Finally, we want to imbed our technology in "systems" that demonstrate meaningful capabibilities, and in forms which can be transfered outside the laboratory and into use in society.