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Autonomous agile flight brings up fundamental challenges in robotics, such as coping with unreliable state estimation, reacting optimally to dynamically changing environments, and coupling perception and action in real time under severe…
Stationary take-off, without a running start or elevated descent, requires substantial aerodynamic forces to overcome weight, particularly for large birds such as geese exceeding 2 kg. However, the complex wing motion and…
Quadrotors are agile. Unlike most other machines, they can traverse extremely complex environments at high speeds. To date, only expert human pilots have been able to fully exploit their capabilities. Autonomous operation with on-board…
Efficiency increase is seen as one of the main goals in any energy converting device. In this direction, the present study aims to demonstrate that large-scale wind turbines can still be improved in order to generate larger amounts of…
A study on filtering aspects of airborne wind energy generators is presented. This class of renewable energy systems aims to convert the aerodynamic forces generated by tethered wings, flying in closed paths transverse to the wind flow,…
Utilizing wind hovering techniques of soaring birds can save energy expenditure and improve the flight endurance of micro air vehicles (MAVs). Here, we present a novel method for fully autonomous orographic soaring without a priori…
We experimentally study the aeroelastic instability boundaries and three-dimensional vortex dynamics of pitching swept wings, with the sweep angle ranging from 0 to 25 degrees. The structural dynamics of the wings are simulated using a…
Predictive motion planning is the key to achieve energy-efficient driving, which is one of the main benefits of automated driving. Researchers have been studying the planning of velocity trajectories, a simpler form of motion planning, for…
In the event of a total loss of thrust, a pilot must identify a reachable landing site and subsequently execute a forced landing. To do so, they must estimate which region on the ground can be reached safely in gliding flight. We call this…
The passive flight of a thin wing or plate is an archetypal problem in flow-structure interactions at intermediate Reynolds numbers. This seemingly simple aerodynamic system displays an impressive variety of steady and unsteady motions that…
Limited flight distance and time is a common problem for multicopters. We propose a method for finding the optimal speed and sideslip angle of a multicopter flying a given path to achieve either the longest flight distance or time. Since…
Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back and forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the…
The natural wind environment that volant insects encounter is unsteady and highly complex, posing significant flight control and stability challenges. Unsteady airflows can range from structured chains of discrete vortices shed in the wake…
Appendages of seeds, fruits and other diaspores (dispersal units) are essential for their wind dispersal, as they act as wings and enable them to fly. Whirling fruits generate an auto-gyrating motion from their sepals, a leaf like…
The wind is one of the most increasingly used renewable energy resources. Accurate and reliable forecast of wind speed is necessary for efficient power production; however, it is not an easy task because it depends upon meteorological…
Minimising the energy consumption associated with periodic motion is a priority common to a wide range of technologies and organisms - among them, many species of flying insect, for which flapping-wing flight is a life-essential mode of…
Several distributed algorithms are presented for the exploration of unknown indoor regions by a swarm of flying, energy constrained agents. The agents, which are identical, autonomous, anonymous and oblivious, uniformly cover the region and…
This expository review is devoted to fish swimming and bird/insect flight. (i) The simple waving motion of an elongated flexible ribbon plate of constant width, immersed in a fluid at rest, propagating a wave distally down the plate to swim…
Insects excel in trajectory and attitude handling during flight, yet the specific kinematic behaviours they use for maintaining stability in air disturbances are not fully understood. This study investigates the adaptive strategies of…
Powered flights in the form of manned or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been flying into tropical cyclones to obtain vital atmospheric measurements with flight duration typically lasting between 12 and 36 hours. Convective vertical…