Collaborative Research: A Combustion-Powered, Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicle

该项目将展示一种昆虫大小的飞行机器人，由燃烧提供动力，具有硬外骨骼和集成的软致动器。前提是受昆虫肌肉骨骼系统启发的结构、推进、控制和控制将产生更高效和更健壮的微型机器人。随着人们意识到，像大多数动物一样，昆虫通过化学燃烧葡萄糖(一种碳氢化合物)来刺激肌肉，这种类比变得更加明显。保守的估计表明，利用燃烧为飞行微型机器人提供动力，将允许在理想条件下不受限制地自主操作30分钟以上，从而使其能够更有效地应用于搜救、基础设施检查和分布式传感器网络。此外，该项目将对教育产生广泛的影响，利用儿童对昆虫生物学的自然兴趣，实现理解机器人的STEM成果。碳氢化合物的燃烧可以具有高达锂聚合物电池的体积能量密度的50倍，是无绳系机器人的潜在能源，即使是昆虫的规模。这项研究旨在展示燃烧驱动的柔软人造肌肉如何产生足够高的频率和力，为扑翼微型飞行器提供动力。典型的燃烧动力机器需要重型和复杂的传动系统才能有效地利用化学能。相反，这项研究将开发柔软的弹性球囊，这种球囊在燃烧时会膨胀，既可以用作发动机，也可以用作变速器--这将极大地降低复杂性和重量。飞行机器人是该项目的目标应用，因为小规模飞行对能量的要求非常高，但其结果将广泛适用于其他功率要求高的自主系统。此外，设想中的机器人规模较小，将在多尺度多材料制造方面产生创新。这项工作将进行三项任务：(1)制造和测试微型软发动机；(2)燃烧室与扑翼机器人平台的集成；(3)开发自主飞行和执行系留控制飞行实验所需的额外技术。

This project will demonstrate an insect-sized flying robot powered by combustion, with a hard exoskeleton and integrated soft actuators. The premise is that structure, propulsion, snd control inspired by the insect musculoskeletal system will produce more efficient and robust microrobots. The analogy becomes even more clear with the realization that, like most animals, insects chemically burn glucose (a hydrocarbon) for muscle actuation. Conservative estimates suggest that the use of combustion to power flying microrobots will allow untethered and autonomous operation for greater than 30 minutes in idealized conditions, enabling vastly more effective application to search and rescue, inspection of infrastructure, and distributed sensor networks. In addition, this project will have broad impacts in education, harnessing children's natural interest in insect biology towards a STEM outcome of understanding robotics.The combustion of hydrocarbons can have up to fifty times the volumetric energy density of lithium polymer batteries and is a potential power source for untethered robots, even at the scale of insects. This research is to show how combustion-powered actuation of a soft, artificial muscle can generate sufficiently high frequencies and forces to power flapping-wing micro-aerial vehicles. Typical combustion-powered machines require heavy and complex transmission systems to effectively use chemical energy. Instead, this research will develop soft, elastomeric bladders that expand during combustion, and serve as both engine and transmission -- drastically reducing complexity and weight. Flying robots are the target application for this project due to the extreme energetic demands of flight at small scales but the results will be broadly applicable to other power-demanding autonomous systems. Furthermore, the small scale of the envisioned robot will produce innovations in multi-scale multi-material manufacturing. The work will take place in three tasks: (i) fabrication and testing of a microscale soft engine; (ii) integration of the combustion chamber with a flapping-wing robot platform; (iii) development of additional technologies required for autonomous flight and performing tethered controlled flight experiments.