Mimicking nature's flyers: a review of insect-inspired flying robots.

Curr Opin Insect Sci

Department of Smart Vehicle Engineering, Konkuk University, Artificial Muscle Research Center, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Electronic address:

Published: December 2020

Insects have attracted much interest from scientists and engineers as they offer an endless source of inspiration for creating innovative engineering designs. By mimicking flying insects, it may be possible to create highly efficient biomimetic drones. In this paper, we provide an overview on how the principles of insect flight, including large stroke amplitudes and wing rotations, the clap-and-fling effect and flight control have been implemented to successfully demonstrate untethered, controlled free-flight in the insect-inspired flying robots. Despite the lack of insect-like muscles, various electro-mechanical systems have been invented to actuate insect robots. Achieving controlled free-flight is a cornerstone of next-generation insect-inspired robots which in addition to flight will be equipped with multiple modes of transportation, similar to real flying insects.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2020.09.008DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

insect-inspired flying
8
flying robots
8
flying insects
8
controlled free-flight
8
mimicking nature's
4
nature's flyers
4
flyers review
4
review insect-inspired
4
flying
4
robots
4

Similar Publications

Flying insects have a robust flight system that allows them to fly even when their forewings are damaged. The insect must adjust wingbeat kinematics to aerodynamically compensate for the loss of wing area. However, the mechanisms that allow insects with asynchronous flight muscle to adapt to wing damage are not well understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Flying insects maintain stability and control while flapping their wings, even when faced with strong winds and turbulence, which conventional controllers often struggle with.
  • - The study introduces a new type of controller for bumblebee hovering, using deep reinforcement learning to enhance stability during large disturbances.
  • - A detailed simulation environment was created to test this controller, which proved effective in quickly stabilizing the bumblebee's flight, showing potential for bio-inspired drone designs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Review of insect-inspired wing micro air vehicle.

Arthropod Struct Dev

January 2023

Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), Jilin University, Changchun, 130022, PR China. Electronic address:

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) have wide application prospects in environmental monitoring, disaster rescue and other civil fields because of their flexibility and maneuverability. Compared with fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, flapping wing micro air vehicles (FWMAVs) have higher energy utilization efficiency and lower cost and have attracted extensive attention from scientists. Insects have become excellent bionic objects for the study of FWMAVs due to their characteristics of low Reynolds number, low noise, hoverability, small size and light weight.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

MEMS-Based Micro Sensors for Measuring the Tiny Forces Acting on Insects.

Sensors (Basel)

October 2022

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kouhoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan.

Small insects perform agile locomotion, such as running, jumping, and flying. Recently, many robots, inspired by such insect performance, have been developed and are expected to be smaller and more maneuverable than conventional robots. For the development of insect-inspired robots, understanding the mechanical dynamics of the target insect is important.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Reconstructing full-field flapping wing dynamics from sparse measurements.

Bioinspir Biomim

November 2020

Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Montana State University, 220 Roberts Hall, Bozeman MT 59717, United States of America.

Flapping insect wings deform during flight. This deformation benefits the insect's aerodynamic force production as well as energetic efficiency. However, it is challenging to measure wing displacement field in flying insects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!