Related papers: Wake-Based Locomotion Gait Design for Aerobat
Walking animals, like stick insects, cockroaches or ants, demonstrate a fascinating range of locomotive abilities and complex behaviors. The locomotive behaviors can consist of a variety of walking patterns along with adaptation that allow…
Stretching and retracting wingspan has been widely observed in the flight of birds and bats, and its effects on the aerodynamic performance particularly lift generation are intriguing. The rectangular flat-plate flapping wing with a…
Taking inspiration from the natural gait transition mechanism of quadrupeds, devising a good gait transition strategy is important for quadruped robots to achieve energy-efficient locomotion on various terrains and velocities. While…
This paper describes a novel amphibious robot, which adopts a dual-swing-legs propulsion mechanism, proposing a new locomotion mode. The robot is called FroBot, since its structure and locomotion are similar to frogs. Our inspiration comes…
Gaits engineered for snake-like robots to rotate in-place instrumentally fill a gap in the set of locomotive gaits that have traditionally prioritized translation. This paper designs a Turn-in-Place gait and demonstrates the ability of a…
Airborne insects generate a leading edge vortex when they flap their wings. This coherent vortex is a low pressure region that enhances the lift of flapping wings compared to fixed wings. Insect wings are thin membranes strengthened by a…
Walking is a common bipedal and quadrupedal gait and is often associated with terrestrial and aquatic organisms. Inspired by recent evidence of the neural underpinnings of primitive aquatic walking in the little skate Leucoraja erinacea, we…
This paper presents an optimization-based motion planning methodology for snake robots operating in constrained environments. By using a reduced-order model, the proposed approach simplifies the planning process, enabling the optimizer to…
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…
Many organisms, including various species of spiders and caterpillars, change their shape to switch gaits and adapt to different environments. Recent technological advances, ranging from stretchable circuits to highly deformable soft…
It is often overlooked by roboticists when designing locomotion controllers for their legged machines, that energy consumption plays an important role in selecting the best gaits for locomotion at high speeds or over long distances. The…
Fluid dynamics, and flight in particular, is a domain where organisms challenge our understanding of its physics. Integrating the current knowledge of animal flight, we propose to revisit the use of live animals to study physical phenomena.…
Recent research on mobile robots has focused on increasing their adaptability to unpredictable and unstructured environments using soft materials and structures. However, the determination of key design parameters and control over these…
The concept of aerial-aquatic robots has emerged as an innovative solution that can operate both in the air and underwater. Previous research on the design of such robots has been mainly focused on mature technologies such as fixed-wing and…
Achieving both agile maneuverability and high energy efficiency in aerial robots, particularly in dynamic wind environments, remains challenging. Conventional thruster-powered systems offer agility but suffer from high energy consumption,…
Reorientation (turning in plane) plays a critical role for all robots in any field application, especially those that in confined spaces. While important, reorientation remains a relatively unstudied problem for robots, including limbless…
Soft robotics has emerged as a promising technology that holds great potential for various application areas. This is due to soft materials unique properties, including flexibility, safety, and shock absorption, among others. Despite many…
Lighter-than-air vehicles or blimps, are an evolving platform in robotics with several beneficial properties such as energy efficiency, collision resistance, and ability to work in close proximity to human users. While existing blimp…
This paper investigates stability analysis of flapping flight. Due to time-varying aerodynamic forces, such systems do not display fixed points of equilibrium. The problem is therefore approached via a limit cycle analysis based on Floquet…
We designed and built a three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) flapping wing robot, Flapperoo, to study the aerodynamic benefits of wing folding and twisting. Forces and moments of this physical model are measured in wind tunnel tests over a…