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

这个项目将展示一个昆虫大小的飞行机器人，由燃烧驱动，具有坚硬的外骨骼和集成的软驱动器。前提是，受昆虫肌肉骨骼系统启发的结构、推进和控制将产生更高效、更健壮的微型机器人。当我们意识到昆虫和大多数动物一样，通过化学方式燃烧葡萄糖（一种碳氢化合物）来驱动肌肉时，这个类比就变得更加清晰了。保守估计，使用燃烧为飞行的微型机器人提供动力，在理想条件下可以不受束缚地自主运行30分钟以上，从而更有效地应用于搜索和救援、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天然兴趣来理解机器人技术的STEM成果。碳氢化合物燃烧的体积能量密度是锂聚合物电池的50倍，是无系绳机器人的潜在动力来源，即使是昆虫的规模。这项研究是为了展示如何通过燃烧驱动柔软的人造肌肉来产生足够高的频率和力量来驱动扑翼微型飞行器。典型的燃烧动力机器需要笨重而复杂的传输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气囊，这种气囊在燃烧过程中膨胀，既可以作为发动机，也可以作为变速器，从而大大降低了复杂性和重量。飞行机器人是该项目的目标应用，因为在小尺度飞行的极端能量需求，但结果将广泛适用于其他电力需求高的自主系统。此外，设想的小尺寸机器人将在多尺度多材料制造中产生创新。这项工作将分三个任务进行：(i)制造和测试微型软发动机；（ii）燃烧室与扑翼机器人平台集成；（三）开发自主飞行和进行系留控制飞行实验所需的其他技术。

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.