Collision-Resilient Insect-scale Soft Aerial Robots for Collective Flights in Cluttered Environments

这笔赠款将支持毫米级到厘米级软空中机器人的研究，这些机器人能够在杂乱的环境中集体飞行。与能够在自然环境中导航并执行授粉等复杂任务的飞行昆虫不同，大多数现有的扑翼微型飞行机器人在碰撞时很脆弱，仅限于在开阔空间飞行。该奖项支持昆虫规模机器人碰撞动力学的基础研究，快速碰撞传感方法和碰撞恢复飞行控制器的设计，以及创造新的空中微型机器人能力，包括群体飞行和栖息在顺从或移动的物体(如花)上的能力。这项研究将通过实现潜在的新应用，如垂直农业中的辅助授粉和检查高度杂乱和难以进入的空间，来提供经济和社会效益。此外，本工作中开发的肌肉状软驱动器可能会在其他类型的移动机器人、可穿戴式触觉设备和微流体系统中得到应用。该项目对研究生和本科生的教育和培训具有更广泛的影响。受生物启发的机器人将用于STEM教育推广，包括对代表不足的少数族裔社区的推广。该项目还将支持为高中生编写教育多媒体材料和暑期实习。该项目的目标是实现可与飞行昆虫相媲美的碰撞弹性，并进一步使亚克扑翼微型飞行器具有新的能力。这些活动包括蜂群飞行、探索杂乱的自然环境和授粉。本文采用解析和实验相结合的方法，主要从以下三个方面进行研究：1)建立动力学模型并设计实验，以测量碰撞对亚格伦飞行机器人的影响；(2)大幅减少碰撞检测时间，设计前馈自反恢复控制器；(3)展示机器人与顺应性和移动障碍物的鲁棒交互作用。这项研究的结果将导致以前的空中机器人从未见过的新颖的飞行演示。新的机器人将能够在墙壁、天花板以及花朵和树叶等顺应物体附近飞行。多个机器人将在一个杂乱的空间中集体飞行，同时展示耐撞性。该项目还将验证用于空中机器人的肌肉状弹性软执行器的优势。该项目由跨部门机器人基础研究计划支持，该计划由工程学指导委员会(ENG)和计算机与信息科学与工程指导委员会(CEISE)共同管理和资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This grant will support research on millimeter-scale to centimeter-scale soft aerial robots capable of collective flight in cluttered environments. Unlike flying insects that can navigate in natural environments and perform complex tasks such as pollination, most existing flapping-wing micro aerial robots are fragile to collisions and are limited to flying in open spaces. This award supports the fundamental study of the collision dynamics of insect-scale robots, the design of fast collision-sensing methods and collision-recovery flight controllers, and the creation of new aerial microrobot capabilities, including swarm flight and the ability to perch on compliant or moving objects such as flowers. This research will provide economic and societal benefits by enabling potential new applications such as assisted pollination in vertical farming and inspection of highly cluttered and inaccessible spaces. In addition, the muscle-like soft actuators developed in this work may find applications in other types of mobile robots, in wearable haptic devices, and in microfluidic systems. This project has broader impacts in the education and training of graduate and undergraduate students. The bio-inspired robots will be used for STEM education outreach, including to underrepresented minority communities. This project will also support the development of educational multimedia materials and summer internships for high-school students. The goal of this project is to achieve collision resilience comparable to flying insects, and to further enable new capabilities for sub-gram flapping-wing micro-aerial-vehicles. These include swarm flight, exploration of cluttered natural environments, and pollination. This work combines analytical and experimental approaches and focuses on the following three directions: 1) formulate dynamic models and design experiments to measure collision impacts on sub-gram aerial robots; (2) substantially reduce collision detection time and design a feedforward reflexive recovery controller; and (3) demonstrate robust robot interactions with compliant and moving obstacles. The outcome of this study will result in novel flight demonstrations unseen in previous aerial robots. The new robot will be able to fly near walls, ceilings, and compliant objects such as flowers and leaves. Multiple robots will fly collectively in a cluttered space while demonstrating collision tolerance. The project will also validate the advantages of muscle-like resilient soft actuators for aerial robots. This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.