Image 1 - New repair techniques enable microscale robots to recover flight performance after suffering severe damage to the artificial muscles that power their wings.

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MIT's resilient bug-sized robot

Creator: MIT

Country: United States of America

Year: 2023

Summary

New repair techniques enable microscale robots to recover flight performance after suffering severe damage to the artificial muscles that power their wings.

Status: Research

Operation: Autonomous, Other

Robot Type / Domain: Research

Tasks: flying after wing damage,

Learn More

below is from "Zewe, A. (2023, March 15). Resilient bug-sized robots keep flying even after wing damage. MIT News Office. Retrieved from https://news.mit.edu/2023/resilient-bug-sized-robots-wing-damage-0315"

"MIT researchers have developed resilient artificial muscles that can enable insect-scale aerial robots to effectively recover flight performance after suffering severe damage.

The new research could make swarms of tiny robots better able to perform tasks in tough environments, like conducting a search mission through a collapsing building or dense forest.

Bumblebees are clumsy fliers. It is estimated that a foraging bee bumps into a flower about once per second, which damages its wings over time. Yet despite having many tiny rips or holes in their wings, bumblebees can still fly.

Aerial robots, on the other hand, are not so resilient. Poke holes in the robot’s wing motors or chop off part of its propellor, and odds are pretty good it will be grounded.

Inspired by the hardiness of bumblebees, MIT researchers have developed repair techniques that enable a bug-sized aerial robot to sustain severe damage to the actuators, or artificial muscles, that power its wings — but to still fly effectively.

They optimized these artificial muscles so the robot can better isolate defects and overcome minor damage, like tiny holes in the actuator. In addition, they demonstrated a novel laser repair method that can help the robot recover from severe damage, such as a fire that scorches the device."

Technical Specifications

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Flying Type: Wings

Manipulation: N/A

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References

Suhan Kim et al., Laser-assisted failure recovery for dielectric elastomer actuators in aerial robots.Sci. Robot.8, (2023).DOI:10.1126/scirobotics.adf4278

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