The engineering community has adapted new technologies in recent years to protect troops as the military’s role in international dealings has increased.
And according to a university professor, the key to ensuring troops’ protection lies in the study of birds and insects.
Faculty in the engineering school are developing robots that both look and behave like wild animals, hoping one day these machines can be used to scout enemy territory and warn American soldiers of potential ambushes.
Sean Humbert, director of the university’s Autonomous Vehicle Lab, which develops such technology, said by understanding how insects move and navigate, scientists can make robots smaller and more maneuverable than ever before.
“Insects are probably the most efficient flying organisms in the world,” Humbert said. “[People] think flies are an annoyance, but they are actually very elegant machines.”
The university’s work is part of a national effort that also involves the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan and five other universities.
Humbert is using a $12 million grant from the Army Research Laboratory to work on his biology-inspired machines. With those funds, his team is designing a small robot with multiple legs and flapping wings.
But looking like a bug is not enough; Humbert hopes it flies like one as well. To that end, his team is also developing an advanced sensor to allow the robot to avoid obstacles as swiftly as an insect can. When all this is completed, he said, the robot should be agile enough to infiltrate hostile buildings and spy on the enemies within.
What’s special about these surveillance robots is that they will be entirely self-navigating, Humbert said. They will be able to fly into their destinations, do their job and get out without having to be controlled remotely by humans.
While Humbert is modeling robots after insects, mechanical engineering professor Satyandra Gupta is making his robots look and move like birds, snakes and four-legged animals. Gupta said that aside from being used as military scouts, these machines have other applications, such as defusing bombs and inspecting pipes inside buildings.
But not every robot the university develops is based on animals. Evan Ulrich, a graduate student working at AVL, has created a machine modeled after a maple seed. Using the same wing design that allows maple seeds to glide gently to the ground, Ulrich said he was able to construct robots that can take off vertically, fly around and hover. This may eventually result in another effective surveillance tool for the Army.
“Biology is the ultimate form of stealth,” Ulrich said. “It has the potential of taking soldiers out of the battle and replacing them with robots.”
To effectively design biology-inspired machines, Ulrich said, he and his colleagues need a good understanding of how nature works. They have spent many hours in their lab, observing fruit flies in a miniature wind tunnel to learn how insects move. But all this comes at a high cost – Ulrich said his lab is now full of bugs.
“They’re terrible,” Ulrich said. “You open a trash can and a cloud of them comes out.”
Although developing insect-like robots is a complicated process, it is something practical everyone can relate to, said Imraan Faruque, a graduate student who also works at AVL. He noted similar robots have been featured in so many movies that people are familiar with the concept. Besides, Faruque said, people see bugs every day.
Ulrich said he enjoys working on these robots because of the unique challenge the work presents every day.
“I have to look for answers on my own,” he said. “It’s the ultimate creative expression.”
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