November 9th, 2008
Flying robots based on birds and insects
A team of engineers at the University of Maryland specializing in flight and navigation, is turning to biology for inspiration to protect troops as the military’s role in international dealings has increased. According to the team leader, the key to ensuring troops’ protection lies in the study of birds and insects. So they’re developing robots that both look and behave like wild animals, “hoping one day these machines can be used to scout enemy territory and warn American soldiers of potential ambushes.” But read more…
You can see above “how researchers at the University of Maryland, especially a group specializing in flight and navigation, is turning to biology for inspiration,” turning to flies, bats and insects to drive flight research. (Credit: University of Maryland) Here is a link to a larger version of this illustration.
This research project is led by Sean Humbert, assistant professor and director of the Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory (AVL) at the University of Maryland. Humbert is using a $12 million grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to work on his biology-inspired machines
Humbert “said by understanding how insects move and navigate, scientists can make robots smaller and more maneuverable than ever before. ‘Insects are probably the most efficient flying organisms in the world,’ Humbert said. ‘[People] think flies are an annoyance, but they are actually very elegant machines.’ [...] But looking like a bug is not enough; Humbert hopes it flies like one as well. To that end, his team is also developing an advanced sensor to allow the robot to avoid obstacles as swiftly as an insect can. When all this is completed, he said, the robot should be agile enough to infiltrate hostile buildings and spy on the enemies within.
This is not the only effort to build nature-based robots at the University of Maryland. Mechanical engineering professor Satyandra Gupta “is making his robots look and move like birds, snakes and four-legged animals.” Here is a link to some of his
flapping wing micro air vehicle designs.
Other robots developed at AVL are not based on birds or insects. “Evan Ulrich, a graduate student working at AVL, has created a machine modeled after a maple seed. Using the same wing design that allows maple seeds to glide gently to the ground, Ulrich said he was able to construct robots that can take off vertically, fly around and hover. This may eventually result in another effective surveillance tool for the Army. ‘Biology is the ultimate form of stealth,’ Ulrich said. ‘It has the potential of taking soldiers out of the battle and replacing them with robots.’”
And such a research is not always easy. “To effectively design biology-inspired machines, Ulrich said, he and his colleagues need a good understanding of how nature works. They have spent many hours in their lab, observing fruit flies in a miniature wind tunnel to learn how insects move. But all this comes at a high cost — Ulrich said his lab is now full of bugs. ‘They’re terrible,’ Ulrich said. ‘You open a trash can and a cloud of them comes out.’”
For more information, you can read two non-dated articles — it seems common at the University of Maryland — but obviously published this fall. The first one is about Humbert focusing on biological sensory systems. The second one comes from University of Maryland’s TERP Magazine Fall 2008 issue, Engineering Meets Nature, from which the above picture has been extracted.
Sources: Chris Yu, The Diamondback, University of Maryland, November 7, 2008; and various websites
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