Related papers: How ornithopters can perch autonomously on a branc…
Wings of flying animals can not only generate lift and control torques but also can sense their surroundings. Such dual functions of sensing and actuation coupled in one element are particularly useful for small sized bio-inspired robotic…
Rigid grippers used in existing aerial manipulators require precise positioning to achieve successful grasps and transmit large contact forces that may destabilize the drone. This limits the speed during grasping and prevents "dynamic…
Insect-scale micro-aerial vehicles, especially lightweight, flapping-wing robots, are becoming increasingly important for safe motion sensing in spatially constrained environments such as living spaces. However, yaw control using flapping…
Flying insects can perform rapid, sophisticated maneuvers like backflips, sharp banked turns, and in-flight collision recovery. To emulate these in aerial robots weighing less than a gram, known as flying insect robots (FIRs), a fast and…
Brachiation is a dynamic, coordinated swinging maneuver of body and arms used by monkeys and apes to move between branches. As a unique underactuated mode of locomotion, it is interesting to study from a robotics perspective since it can…
Using a flapping robot in a wind tunnel, we show that flapping faster amplifies existing longitudinal static stability (focusing on the pitch stiffness) and can even make an unstable flier stable. We show that stability for a flapper is not…
Quadrotors with the ability to perch on moving inclined surfaces can save energy and extend their travel distance by leveraging ground vehicles. Achieving dynamic perching places high demands on the performance of trajectory planning and…
Flapping-wing robots offer significant versatility; however, achieving efficient multi-modal locomotion remains challenging. This paper presents the design, modeling, and experimentation of a novel tailless flapping-wing robot with three…
The problem of autonomous launch and landing of a tethered rigid aircraft for airborne wind energy generation is addressed. The system operates with ground-based power conversion and pumping cycles, where the tether is repeatedly reeled in…
Spatial single-loop mechanisms such as Bennett linkages offer a unique combination of one-degree-of-freedom actuation and nontrivial spatial trajectories, making them attractive for lightweight bio-inspired robotic design. However, although…
There are various desired capabilities to create aerial forest-traversing robots capable of monitoring both biological and abiotic data. The features range from multi-functionality, robustness, and adaptability. These robots have to weather…
Biologically-inspired robots are a very interesting and difficult branch of robotics dues to its very rich dynamical and morphological complexities. Among them, flying animals, such as bats, have been among the most difficult to take…
This article presents a new control approach and a dynamic model for engineered flapping flight with many interacting degrees of freedom. This paper explores the applications of neurobiologically inspired control systems in the form of…
The techniques of precision agriculture include the possibility to execute crop monitoring tasks through the application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). These platforms are flexible, easy to use and low-cost, and they are the best…
This work briefly covers our efforts to stabilize the flight dynamics of Northeastern's tailless bat-inspired micro aerial vehicle, Aerobat. Flapping robots are not new. A plethora of examples is mainly dominated by insect-style design…
The design of localization systems for small-scale flapping-wing aerial robots faces relevant challenges caused by the limited payload and onboard computational resources. This paper presents an ultra-wideband localization system…
This paper presents a novel recovery technique for a fixed-wing UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) based on constrained optimization: i) we propose a trajectory generation for landing the UAV where it first reduces its altitude by deep stalling,…
Contrary to the stunning feats observed in birds of prey, aerial manipulation and grasping with flying robots still lack versatility and agility. Conventional approaches using rigid manipulators require precise positioning and are subject…
Drawing inspiration from the adaptive wing shape of birds in flight, this study introduces a bio-inspired concept for shape adaptation utilizing bend-twist coupling (BTC) in composite laminates. The primary aim of the design optimization is…
Small flying robots can perform landing maneuvers using bio-inspired optical flow by maintaining a constant divergence. However, optical flow is typically estimated from frame sequences recorded by standard miniature cameras. This requires…