EAPSI: Developing a Shape Changing Wing Design for a Bio-inspired Flying Robot

鸟类通过空气动力学形状灵活地变换翅膀，并能在不可预测的环境中稳定飞行，这是机器人目前无法复制的壮举。该项目将利用软机器人和折纸结构方面的工程进步，以实现以鸟为灵感的机器人变形翅膀的设计。这项工作将与韩国首尔国立大学生物机器人实验室负责人赵久珍博士合作完成，他专门研究受生物启发的软机械和机器人。他的专业知识与PI在鸟类形态和运动学方面的知识相结合，将允许以独特的视角混合设计和制造具有变形折纸翅膀的飞行机器人。通过这个项目，将开发新的生物启发机制，以进一步了解飞行中不断变化的机翼形状。仿生设计正在给机器人领域带来革命性的变化，并有可能进一步改进飞行机器人，特别是小型、低雷诺数的飞行器。该项目的目标是应用新型形状记忆合金(SMA)致动器和灵活的折纸制作方法，为受鸟类启发的机器人创造变形翅膀，其运动基于鸟类的生物力学测量。在设计了一个仿生机器人之后，将使用高速视频来分析机器人的运动学，并与现有的飞行机器人和鸟类进行飞行性能比较。飞行性能测试包括飞行时间、滑翔率和操纵性。这项研究是推动生物灵感设计领域向前迈出的重要一步，将记录在案的鸟类运动学和形态学与最先进的工程执行器和制造方法结合在一起。该奖项由东亚和太平洋夏季学院计划支持一名美国研究生的夏季研究，由NSF和韩国国家研究基金会联合资助。

Birds nimbly shift their wings through aerodynamic shapes and can fly stably in unpredictable environments, a feat that robots currently cannot replicate. This project will leverage engineering advances in soft robotics and origami structures to enable bird-inspired designs of robotic shape-changing wings. This work will be done in collaboration with Dr. Kyujin Cho, head of the Biorobotics Lab at Seoul National University in Korea, who specializes in soft biologically inspired mechanisms and robots. His expertise combined with the PI's knowledge of bird morphology and kinematics will allow a unique mixing of perspectives to design and build a flying robot with morphing origami wings. Through this project, new bio-inspired mechanisms will be developed to further understand shape-changing wings in flight. Bio-inspired design has been revolutionizing the robotics field, and has the potential to further improve flying robots, especially small-scale, low Reynolds number fliers. The objective of this project is to apply novel shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators and flexible origami fabrication methods to create a morphing wing for a bird-inspired robot with movements based on biomechanical measurements of birds. After the design of a bio-inspired robot, high speed video will be used to analyze robot kinematics and to benchmark flight performance against current flying robots and birds. Flight performance tests include flight time, glide ratio, and controllability. This study is an important step to forward the field of bio-inspired design, bringing together documented bird kinematics and morphology with state of the art engineering actuators and manufacturing methods.This award, under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the National Research Foundation of Korea.