12 accepted papers
In this paper, we introduce advances in the sensor suite of an autonomous flying insect robot (FIR) weighing less than a gram. FIRs, because of their small weight and size, offer unparalleled advantages in terms of material cost and scalability. However, their size introduces considerable control ch
Flying insect robots weighing less than a gram (FIRs) have advantages over their larger counterparts due to their low materials cost, small size, and low weight, allowing for deployment in large numbers. Control autonomy in such aircraft introduces challenges arising from their small size such as hi…
Constrained battery life on current Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) limits the time they can operate and distance they can travel. We address this challenge by harvesting solar power to enable duty-cycled operation on a palm-sized drone. We present a scaling analysis that suggests that more solar…
Flapping-wing insect-scale robots (<;$500 mg) rely on small changes in drive signals supplied to actuators to generate angular torques. Previous results on vehicles with passive wing hinges have demonstrated roll, pitch, and position control, but they have not yet been able to control their yaw (hea
Successful demonstrations of controlled flight in flying insect-sized robots (FIRs) <; 500 mg have all relied on piezoactuated flapping wings because of unfavorable downward size scaling in motor-driven propellers. In practice, the mechanical complexity of flapping wings typically results in large t
This letter introduces a new aerial insect-sized robot weighing 143 mg-slightly more than a honeybee-actuated by four perpendicular wings splayed outward. This arrangement gives the robot more capabilities than previous two-winged designs. These include the ability to actuate around a vertical axis
We present the design, fabrication, and feedforward control of a insect-sized (142 mg) aerial robot that is equipped with a bio-inspired inertial tail. A tail allows the robot to perform rapid inertial reorientation as well as to shift weight to modulate aerodynamic torques on its body. Here we pres…
Robotic airborne chemical source localization has critical applications ranging from search and rescue to hazard detection to pollution assessment. Previous demonstrations on flying robots have required search times in excess of ten minutes, or required computation-intensive signal processing, large…
Efforts to engineer insect-sized (~100 mg) robots are motivated by their potential advantages relative to larger robots, such as greater deployment numbers at the same cost. Previous iterations have demonstrated controlled flight, but were limited in terms of locomotion capabilities outside of fligh…
To date, insect scale aerial robots have required wire tethers for providing power due to the challenges of integrating the required high-voltage power electronics within their severely constrained weight budgets. In this paper we present a significant milestone in the achievement of flight autonomy…
The RoboBee is a novel insect-scale flapping wing Micro Aerial Vehicle that is envisioned to enable exciting applications. While recent results have demonstrated full control as well as biomimetic behaviors such as perching, more complex challenges such as perception and navigation still exist. Typi…
The Harvard Robobee is a fly-sized aerial vehicle that can perform controlled flight maneuvers. But this robot is unable to control its yaw or heading angle to a desired value. Motivated by this deficiency, we propose a new method to produce yaw-axis rotations. Termed wriggle-steering, it consists o…