The strange wings of bats inspired this drone

Bats are among the most unorthodox birds in the animal kingdom. Unlike birds, furry flying mammals can dynamically reshape and transform their wings to achieve maximum strength and hover in place. The soft membrane of their wings, which resembles a human arm more than a bird’s wing, is also extremely flexible, meaning the bats can shape themselves to squeeze through tiny corridors.

Now, researchers at Northeastern University are taking these unique elements and applying them to a fully autonomous flying drone called “Aerobat.” Ultimately, they think this bat-inspired robot could be used to navigate sewer tunnels, caves and other narrow corridors largely off-limits to current flying robots.

Bats fly ‘fundamentally different’

The researchers, who published their results in the International Journal of Robotics Research late last month, used a combiner of 3D printed hard and soft materials to form the base of Aerobat’s wings. Just like its real-life doppelganger, Aerobat’s thin, flexible wings expand on downward movements and collapse on upward movements. This movement, according to the paper, creates “periodic jets of air” that are used to maximize net positive aerodynamic force. The result is a very effective method of maintaining flight.

“Some publications refer to bat flight as dancing in the air,” Alireza Ramezani, Northeast associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and senior author of the paper, said in a statement. “They don’t just fly, they dance in the air with great composure. They try to manipulate their fluid environment and this is unique to bats.

In addition to its wings, Aerobat uses a camera to determine its position and orientation. A set of on-board computers are then used for automatic flight control. A human still has to manually decide Aerobat’s final destination. Once this is determined, however, the robotic bat will flap its wings and navigate to its destination completely autonomously. Aerobat can then hover in place and use an array of sensors to collect data about its surroundings.

“The idea is to design bio-inspired drones capable of operating in extremely small and confined environments,” Ramezani said. Ramezani has spent the last three years studying how bat moments could be incorporated into a flying device. A previous prototype version of Aerobat, called “Bat Bot”, was featured in a 2017 report. Nature article.

Modern robots take inspiration from living creatures

Scientists are no strangers to taking inspiration from nature. Previous bird-inspired quadcopters used hawk-like claws and pads to grip ledges and land smoothly just about anywhere. Other researchers have already developed robots based on long-legged spiders, cockroaches, dogs, and long-extinct sea creatures, to name a few. In each of these cases, the natural elegance of biology’s movements and functions helps researchers solve real-world problems.

For Aerobat, this could one day mean being used to collect data from sewer systems or other hard-to-reach areas of infrastructure. The researchers say their robot could also be equipped with a depth-sensing camera for environmental monitoring. If successful, Aerobat would join a growing list of new robots used to monitor nuclear facilities and other dangerous areas largely inaccessible to humans.

“The fact is that we are surrounded by confined environments and we do not have fast robots that can help us in remote sensing and other applications,” Ramezani said.