Flapping robotic birdplane lands right on your hand

May 3, 2012
flapping_wings_robot

Perched landing on a chair (credit: A. Paranjape, J. Kim, and S.-J. Chung)

A flapping birdplane robot that can land on the back of your hand is under development at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), IEEE Spectrum Automaton Blog reports.

This bio-inspired model (based on birds and bats) can reorient its wings while gliding, providing glide-phase control without a bunch of extra complicated and heavy actuators.

Ref.: A. Paranjape, J. Kim, and S.-J. Chung, Closed-Loop Perching of Aerial Robots with Articulated Flapping Wings, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2012, in press

Ref.: A. Paranjape, J. Kim, and S.-J. Chung, Closed-Loop Perching of Aerial Robots with Articulated Flapping Wings, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2012, pre-release version [PDF]