RoboFly: An Insect-Sized Robot With Simplified Fabrication That Is Capable of Flight, Ground, and Water Surface Locomotion

Chukewad, Yogesh M.; James, Johannes M.; Singh, Avinash; Fuller, Sharon

doi:10.1109/tro.2021.3075374

Cited by 44 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Our results show that by using only an accelerometer and camera, the avionics system mass is reduced by more than 20-fold and power usage reduces by more than 100-fold compared with previous demonstrated hovering controllers. This work represents an important step toward realizing 10-mg aerial robots first conjectured in ( 1 ), as well as significantly reducing sensor mass and power for 100-mg robots like the Robofly ( 3 , 4 ). We validated our results on a 30-g palm-sized hovering rotorcraft.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…A key constraint is power usage: We assumed that sensing and computation for a NAT robot must consume no more than 1 mW. This 10% of the power to fly, like previous visual flight demonstrations at 1.5 kg ( 31 ) and 30 g ( 35 ), assumes that a 10-mg NAT robot consumes a tenth of the 100 mW power needed for a 100-mg Robofly to fly ( 4 ). This rules out off-board sensor processing because wireless radio transmission consumes tens of milliwatts even for low-rate, low-resolution video ( 36 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea of extremely small autonomous robots, termed "gnat robots" (1,2), first gained widespread attention in the 1980s. To provide a precise definition and terminology, we will define a Nature-inspired Aerial Ten-milligram robot, or "NAT robot," to refer to a robot that flies and weighs between 1 and 10 mg. A grain of rice weighs about 10 mg, making NAT robots smaller than the 100-to 600-mg flapping-wing flyers (weighing about the same as one to six toothpicks) that have been created to date, such as the Robofly (3)(4)(5), Robobee (6,7), Bee+ (8), and Softfly (9) (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A gyroscope-free visual-inertial flight control and wind sensing system for 10-mg robots

Fuller

Talwekar

2022

Sci. Robot.

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Tiny “gnat robots,” weighing just a few milligrams, were first conjectured in the 1980s. How to stabilize one if it were to hover like a small insect has not been answered. Challenges include the requirement that sensors be both low mass and high bandwidth and that silicon-micromachined rate gyroscopes are too heavy. The smallest robot to perform controlled hovering uses a sensor suite weighing hundreds of milligrams. Here, we demonstrate that an accelerometer represents perhaps the most direct way to stabilize flight while satisfying the extreme size, speed, weight, and power constraints of a flying robot even as it scales down to just a few milligrams. As aircraft scale reduces, scaling physics dictates that the ratio of aerodynamic drag to mass increases. This results in reduced noise in an accelerometer’s airspeed measurement. We show through simulation and experiment on a 30-gram robot that a 2-milligram off-the-shelf accelerometer is able in principle to stabilize a 10-milligram robot despite high noise in the sensor itself. Inspired by wind-vision sensory fusion in the flight controller of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , we then added a tiny camera and efficient, fly-inspired autocorrelation-based visual processing to allow the robot to estimate and reject wind as well as control its attitude and flight velocity using a Kalman filter. Our biology-inspired approach, validated on a small flying helicopter, has a wind gust response comparable to the fruit fly and is small and efficient enough for a 10-milligram flying vehicle (weighing less than a grain of rice).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A gyroscope-free visual-inertial flight control and wind sensing system for 10-mg robots

Fuller

Talwekar

2022

Sci. Robot.

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“…Instead, the robot engineer will have to strive for the same kind of parsimony that is found in insect intelligence. This will be vital for small robots with limited resources, like tiny insect-like flying drones (29,191), but it will also be important for larger robots when they have to execute many complex tasks, when their bodies are covered with tiny sensors, and when energy efficiency is an overriding concern. Indeed, in nature, parsimony is not reserved for insects alone; it is a governing principle for all animals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect-inspired AI for autonomous robots

et al. 2022

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Autonomous robots are expected to perform a wide range of sophisticated tasks in complex, unknown environments. However, available onboard computing capabilities and algorithms represent a considerable obstacle to reaching higher levels of autonomy, especially as robots get smaller and the end of Moore’s law approaches. Here, we argue that inspiration from insect intelligence is a promising alternative to classic methods in robotics for the artificial intelligence (AI) needed for the autonomy of small, mobile robots. The advantage of insect intelligence stems from its resource efficiency (or parsimony) especially in terms of power and mass. First, we discuss the main aspects of insect intelligence underlying this parsimony: embodiment, sensory-motor coordination, and swarming. Then, we take stock of where insect-inspired AI stands as an alternative to other approaches to important robotic tasks such as navigation and identify open challenges on the road to its more widespread adoption. Last, we reflect on the types of processors that are suitable for implementing insect-inspired AI, from more traditional ones such as microcontrollers and field-programmable gate arrays to unconventional neuromorphic processors. We argue that even for neuromorphic processors, one should not simply apply existing AI algorithms but exploit insights from natural insect intelligence to get maximally efficient AI for robot autonomy.

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“…In [9], a micro-robot is proposed that can mimic bees to fly. The micro-robot proposed in [10] is also capable of mimicking insect wing-flapping. There are also some special robots, such as the land-air robot with the ability to adsorb to walls [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Surface and Ground Control of a Small Cross-Domain Robot Based on Fast Line-of-Sight Algorithm and Adaptive Sliding Mode Integral Barrier Control

et al. 2022

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This paper focuses on the control method of small cross-domain robots (CDR) on the water surface and the ground. The maximum size of the robot is 85 cm and the weight of the robot is 6.5 kg. To solve the problem that CDRs cannot handle the lateral velocity, which leads to error in tracking the desired trajectory, a fast line of sight (FLOS) algorithm is proposed. In this method, an exponential term is introduced to plan the yaw angle, and a fast-extended state observer (FESO) is designed to observe the side slip angle without small angle assumption. The performances and working environments of CDRs are different on the ground and the water surface. Therefore, to avoid the driver saturation and putting risk, an adaptive sliding mode integral barrier control (ASMIBC) is proposed to constrain the robot state. This control method solves the constraint failure of the traditional integral barrier control (IBC) when the desired state is a constant. The gain of the sliding mode is adaptively adjusted by the error between the limit state and the actual state. In addition, the adaptive rate is designed for uncertain time-varying lumped disturbances, such as water resistance, currents and wind. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

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RoboFly: An Insect-Sized Robot With Simplified Fabrication That Is Capable of Flight, Ground, and Water Surface Locomotion

Cited by 44 publications

References 57 publications

A gyroscope-free visual-inertial flight control and wind sensing system for 10-mg robots

A gyroscope-free visual-inertial flight control and wind sensing system for 10-mg robots

Insect-inspired AI for autonomous robots

Water Surface and Ground Control of a Small Cross-Domain Robot Based on Fast Line-of-Sight Algorithm and Adaptive Sliding Mode Integral Barrier Control

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