CAREER: Bio-inspired Automatic Control of a Flying Robotic Insect

本研究的目的是提取昆虫飞行控制原理，并将其应用于飞行机器人昆虫的稳定和导航。飞行昆虫，尤其是苍蝇，采用的飞行控制模式与人造飞机截然不同。典型的固定翼飞机在飞行中是被动稳定的，而苍蝇利用不稳定的飞行动力学来实现快速机动。特殊的感觉器官与局部的小控制肌肉协同作用以稳定昆虫。其他传感器信息（例如视觉信息）可以抑制这些局部反馈回路，从而启动快速转弯。该研究方法将阐明昆虫在工程环境中的飞行控制原理，并利用这些原理为敏捷飞行器的控制开发一种新的范例。这将基于传感器和执行器的多种组合，运行高速控制回路。这项研究将以高度经验的方式将生物观察和实验与类蝇机器人结合起来。可交付成果包括合成受昆虫启发的飞行控制器的规则，控制器性能模型，以及使用这些技术能够控制悬停（带有动力系绳）的机器人苍蝇的演示。这项研究是最终创造小型敏捷自主机器人的关键一步。这些设备的应用包括搜索和救援、危险环境探测、侦察、行星探测、环境监测和交通监测。这项研究的多学科性质将广泛地教育参与这项工作的研究生和本科生以及高中科学教师。此外，在整个工作过程中，机器昆虫将被用作一个新的交互式网络论坛的例子，旨在激励年轻学生并鼓励他们学习科学和工程。

The goal of this research is to extract principles of insect flight control and apply them to the stabilization and navigation of a flying robotic insect. Flying insects, and in particular flies, employ a flight control paradigm that is dramatically different from man-made aircraft. While typical fixed-wing aircraft are passively stable in flight, flies exploit unstable flight dynamics to achieve rapid maneuvers. Specialized sensory organs act in concert with small control muscles locally to stabilize the insect. Other sensor information (visual information, for example) can suppress these local feedback loops to initiate rapid turns. The research approach will elucidate the principles of insect flight control in an engineering context and use these to develop a new paradigm for control of an agile vehicle. This will be based upon multiple combinations of sensors and actuators operating high-speed control loops. This research will merge biological observation and experimentation with fly-like robots in a highly-empirical approach. Deliverables include rules for synthesizing insect-inspired flight controllers, models of controller performance, and a demonstration of a robotic fly capable of controlled hovering (with a power tether) using these techniques.This research is a critical step towards the eventual creation of small and agile autonomous robots. Applications for such devices include search and rescue, hazardous environment exploration, reconnaissance, planetary exploration, environmental monitoring, and traffic monitoring. The multidisciplinary nature of this research will serve to broadly educate graduate and undergraduate students and high school science teachers who will participate in this work. Moreover, throughout the course of this work, robotic insects will be used as examples in a new interactive web-based forum aimed at exciting young students and encouraging them to study science and engineering.