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Despite their different nature and physics, blazars and gamma-ray bursts have in common very powerful relativistic jets, which make them the most luminous sources in the Universe. The energy extraction from the central compact object, the…
Having the advantage of being relatively fast and powerful, as well as readily fabricated, spherical bubble-propelled microrobots are particularly well suited for applications such as cargo delivery, micromanipulation, and biological or…
Controlling the flight of flapping-wing drones requires versatile controllers that handle their time-varying, nonlinear, and underactuated dynamics from incomplete and noisy sensor data. Model-based methods struggle with accurate modeling,…
We present the modeling, design, fabrication and feedback control of an earthworm-inspired soft robot capable of crawling on surfaces by actively manipulating the frictional force between its body and the surface. Earthworms are segmented…
The application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is surging across several industries, paralleled by growing demand for these UAVs. However, the noise emitted by UAVs remains a significant impediment to their widespread use even though in…
We examine theoretically the flow interactions and forward flight dynamics of tandem or in-line flapping wings. Two wings are driven vertically with prescribed heaving-and-plunging motions, and the horizontal propulsion speeds and positions…
The last few decades have led to the rise of research focused on propulsion and control systems for bio-inspired unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), which provide more maneuverable alternatives to traditional UUVs in underwater missions.…
The impact of fluidic actuation on the wake and drag of a three-dimensional blunt body is investigated experimentally. Jets blowing tangentially to the main flow allow to force the wake with variable frequency and amplitude. Depending on…
Insects use flight muscles attached at the base of the wings to produce impressive wing flapping frequencies. The maximum power output of these flight muscles is insufficient to maintain such wing oscillations unless there is good elastic…
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…
Aerial robotic arms aim to enable inspection and environment interaction in otherwise hard-to-reach areas from the air. However, many aerial manipulators feature bulky or heavy robot manipulators mounted to large, high-payload aerial…
Our goal in this work is to expand the theory and practice of robot locomotion by addressing critical challenges associated with the robotic biomimicry of bat aerial locomotion. Bats wings exhibit fast wing articulation and can mobilize as…
This work presents an actuation framework for a bioinspired flapping drone called Aerobat. This drone, capable of producing dynamically versatile wing conformations, possesses 14 body joints and is tail-less. Therefore, in our robot, unlike…
The flexibility of biological propulsors such as wings and fins is believed to contribute to the higher performance of flying and swimming animals compared with their engineered peers. Flexibility seems to follow a universal design rule…
Fireflies lighten up our warm summer evenings. There is more physic behind these little animals than anyone of us could imagine. In this paper we analyze from a physical point of view one structure found on the firefly lantern, the one…
Information from the sky is important for rescue activity in large-scale disaster or dangerous areas. Observation system using a balloon or an airplane has been studied as an information gathering system from the sky. A balloon observation…
Robotic mobility in microgravity is necessary to expand human utilization and exploration of outer space. Bio-inspired multi-legged robots are a possible solution for safe and precise locomotion. However, a dynamic motion of a robot in…
The flight characteristics of bats remarkably have been overlooked in aerial drone designs. Unlike other animals, bats leverage the manipulation of inertial dynamics to exhibit aerial flip turns when they perch. Inspired by this unique…
Combining model-based and model-free deep reinforcement learning has shown great promise for improving sample efficiency on complex control tasks while still retaining high performance. Incorporating imagination is a recent effort in this…
Flying vertebrates exhibit sophisticated wingbeat kinematics. Their specialized forelimbs allow for the wing morphing motion to couple with the flapping motion during their level flight, Previous flyable bionic platforms have successfully…