Related papers: Controlled Flight of an Insect-Scale Flapping-Wing…
Flapping wing flight is a challenging dynamical problem and is also a very fascinating subject to study in the field of biomimetic robotics. A Bat, in particular, has a very articulated armwing mechanism with high degrees-of-freedom and…
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…
Animal swarms displaying a variety of typical flocking patterns would not exist without underlying safe, optimal and stable dynamics of the individuals. The emergence of these universal patterns can be efficiently reconstructed with…
Medium and large insects in normal hovering have horizontal, planar up- and downstrokes1-4. The lift of the two half-strokes, generated by the leading-edge vortex, provides the weight-supporting vertical force. But for small insects (wing…
Although quadrotors, and aerial robots in general, are inherently active agents, their perceptual capabilities in literature so far have been mostly passive in nature. Researchers and practitioners today use traditional computer vision…
Air ducts are integral to modern buildings but are challenging to access for inspection. Small quadrotor drones offer a potential solution, as they can navigate both horizontal and vertical sections and smoothly fly over debris. However,…
We present a contact-based phenotyping robot platform that can autonomously insert nitrate sensors into cornstalks to proactively monitor macronutrient levels in crops. This task is challenging because inserting such sensors requires…
While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in several missions, their inability of reliable and consistent autonomous landing poses a major setback for deploying such systems truly autonomously. In this paper we present…
Tree fruit growers around the world are facing labor shortages for critical operations, including harvest and pruning. There is a great interest in developing robotic solutions for these labor-intensive tasks, but current efforts have been…
True microrobots, in contrast with externally controlled microparticles, must harvest or carry their own source of energy, as well as their own (preferably programmable) microcontroller of actuators for locomotion, using information…
In practical applications, autonomous quadrotors are still facing significant challenges, such as the detection and avoidance of very small and even dynamic obstacles (e.g., tree branches, power lines). In this paper, we propose a compact,…
Exploration of Mars has been made possible using a series of landers, rovers and orbiters. The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured high-resolution images covering large tracts of the surface. However, orbital…
Multilinked aerial robot is one of the state-of-the-art works in aerial robotics, which demonstrates the deformability benefiting both maneuvering and manipulation. However, the performance in outdoor physical world has not yet been…
The recent advancements in nanoscale 3D printing and microfabrication techniques have reinvigorated research on microrobots. However, precise motion control of the microrobots on biological environments using compact actuation setups…
The advancement of insect-computer hybrid robots holds significant promise for navigating complex terrains and enhancing robotics applications. This study introduced an automatic assembly method for insect-computer hybrid robots, which was…
Perching allows unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to reduce energy consumption, remain anchored for surface sampling operations, or stably survey their surroundings. Previous efforts for perching on vertical surfaces have predominantly…
Flapping wings enable flying animals and biomimetic robots to generate elevated aerodynamic forces. Measurements that demonstrate this capability are based on tethered experiments with robots and animals, and indirect force calculations…
Soft robots have drawn significant attention recently for their ability to achieve rich shapes when interacting with complex environments. However, their elasticity and flexibility compared to rigid robots also pose significant challenges…
Flexible robots have advantages over rigid robots in their ability to conform physically to their environment and to form a wide variety of shapes. Sensing the force applied by or to flexible robots is useful for both navigation and…
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…