Mar 3, 2021
Insect-Inspired Flying Robots: Researchers Introduce a New Generation of Tiny, Agile Drones
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: drones, food, robotics/AI
The technology could boost aerial robots’ repertoire, allowing them to operate in cramped spaces and withstand collisions.
If you’ve ever swatted a mosquito away from your face, only to have it return again (and again and again), you know that insects can be remarkably acrobatic and resilient in flight. Those traits help them navigate the aerial world, with all of its wind gusts, obstacles, and general uncertainty. Such traits are also hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has built a system that approaches insects’ agility.