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的原理，并将其应用于飞行机器昆虫的稳定和导航。 飞行昆虫，特别是苍蝇，采用的飞行控制模式与人造飞机截然不同。 虽然典型的固定翼飞机在飞行中是被动稳定的，但苍蝇利用不稳定的飞行动力学来实现快速机动。 专门的感觉器官与局部的小控制肌肉协调一致，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，以启动快速转弯。 该研究方法将阐明昆虫飞行控制的原理，在工程背景下，并使用这些开发一个新的范例控制的敏捷车辆。 这将基于操作高速控制回路的传感器和致动器的多种组合。 这项研究将以高度经验性的方法将生物观察和实验与苍蝇机器人相结合。 这些成果包括合成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的机器人飞行演示（使用动力绳）。这项研究是最终创造小型灵活的自主机器人的关键一步。 这种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有助于广泛教育研究生和本科生和高中科学教师谁将参与这项工作。 此外，在整个工作过程中，机器昆虫将被用作一个新的互动网络论坛的例子，旨在激发年轻学生的兴趣，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.