Hybrid aerial and aquatic locomotion in an at-scale robotic insect

Yufeng Chen; E. Farrell Helbling; Nick Gravish; Kevin Ma; Robert J. Wood

IROS 2015poster65 citations

Hybrid aerial and aquatic locomotion in an at-scale robotic insect

Yufeng Chen, E. Farrell Helbling, Nick Gravish, Kevin Ma, Robert J. Wood

Abstract

Here we present a suite of theoretical, computational, and experimental studies culminating in the first aerial and aquatic capable insect-scale robot. We develop a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to model fluid-wing interaction in air and water. From CFD and a system dynamics analysis we predict that a multi-modal flapping strategy will enable locomotion in both air and water for a single device. We validate the CFD predictions by running at-scale, robotic wing-flapping experiments. Finally, we demonstrate for the first time a flying and swimming capable flapping-wing insect-like robot.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{iros2015_hybridaerialanda,
  title = {Hybrid aerial and aquatic locomotion in an at-scale robotic insect},
  author = {Yufeng Chen and E. Farrell Helbling and Nick Gravish and Kevin Ma and Robert J. Wood},
  booktitle = {IROS 2015},
  year = {2015}
}