Kevin Chen, MIT - Talk Abstract

Abstract: 

Flapping-wing flight at the insect-scale is incredibly challenging. Insect muscles not only power flight but also absorb in-flight impacts, making these tiny flyers simultaneously agile and robust. In this talk, I will describe our work on a new class of bio-inspired micro-flyers that combine high bandwidth soft artificial muscles, compliant transmission, and rigid wings. Our robot can hover for 1000 seconds, reject strong wind disturbances, recover from in-flight collisions, track aggressive trajectories, and perform somersaults continuously. This work demonstrates for the first time that soft aerial robots can achieve agile and robust flight capabilities absent in rigid-powered micro-aerial vehicles, highlighting the potential of hybrid soft-rigid robotic designs. I will also discuss our recent progress in incorporating onboard sensors, electronics, and batteries.