Related papers: Bio-Inspired Synergistic Wing and Tail Morphing Ex…
Collective motion inspired by animal groups offers powerful design principles for autonomous aerial swarms. We present a bio-inspired 3D flocking algorithm in which each drone interacts only with a minimal set of influential neighbors,…
Turning takeoff flights of several dragonflies were recorded during which a dragonfly takes off while changing the flight direction at the same time. Center of mass was elevated about 1-2 body lengths. Five of these maneuvers were selected…
There is evidence that flying animals such as pigeons, goshawks, and bats use optical flow sensing to enable high-speed flight through forest clutter. This paper discusses the elements of a theory of controlled flight through obstacle…
In this work, we evaluate the use of aerial drone hover constraints in a multisensor fusion of ground robot and drone data to improve the localization performance of a drone. In particular, we build upon our prior work on cooperative…
Drone swarms are required for the simultaneous delivery of multiple packages. We demonstrate a multi-stop drone swarm-based delivery in a smart city. We leverage formation flying to conserve energy and increase the flight range of a drone…
We present a steady jet flow-based flow control of flexible membrane wings for an adaptive and efficient motion of bat-inspired drones in complex flight environments. A body-fitted variational computational aeroelastic framework is adopted…
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 endurance and energy efficiency of drones remain critical challenges in their design and operation. To extend mission duration, numerous studies explored perching mechanisms that enable drones to conserve energy by temporarily…
Remote monitoring of drones has become a global objective due to emerging applications in national security and managing aerial delivery traffic. Despite their relatively small size, drones can carry significant payloads, which require…
Terrestrial animals and robots are susceptible to flipping-over during rapid locomotion in complex terrains. However, small robots are less capable of self-righting from an upside-down orientation compared to small animals like insects.…
We introduce a method that permits to co-evolve the body and the control properties of robots. It can be used to adapt the morphological traits of robots with a hand-designed morphological bauplan or to evolve the morphological bauplan as…
Abdominal Undulation with Compliant Mechanism Improves Flight Performance of Biomimetic Robotic ButterflThis paper presents the design, modeling, and experimental validation of a biomimetic robotic butterfly (BRB) that integrates a…
We demonstrate formation flying for drone swarm services. A set of drones fly in four different swarm formations. A dataset is collected to study the effect of formation flying on energy consumption. We conduct a set of experiments to study…
Morphing aerial robots have the potential to transform autonomous flight, enabling navigation through cluttered environments, perching, and seamless transitions between aerial and terrestrial locomotion. Yet mid-flight reconfiguration…
Local wind conditions strongly influence drone performance: headwinds increase flight time, crosswinds and wind shear hinder agility in cluttered spaces, while tailwinds reduce travel time. Although adaptive controllers can mitigate…
Saving energy and enhancing performance are secular preoccupations shared by both nature and human beings. In animal locomotion, flapping flyers or swimmers rely on the flexibility of their wings or body to passively increase their…
Compared with fixed-wing flight, flapping flight can generate a higher lift and is also more maneuverable, largely resulting from the benefits of wing rotation. By analyzing the real wing kinematics of fruit flies, we found that the wing…
The albatross optimized flight maneuver -- known as dynamic soaring -- is nothing but a wonder of biology, physics, and engineering. By utilizing dynamic soaring, the bird can travel in the desired flight direction almost for free by…
The 3D flight control of a flapping wing robot is a very challenging problem. The robot stabilizes and controls its pose through the aerodynamic forces acting on the wing membrane which has complex dynamics and it is difficult to develop a…
The autonomous formation flight of fixed-wing drones is hard when the coordination requires the actuation over their speeds since they are critically bounded and aircraft are mostly designed to fly at a nominal airspeed. This paper proposes…