Almost all flying creatures, from centimeter-scale insects to meter-scale birds, maneuver through flapping-wing propulsion. Development of flapping-wing robots capable of long-term autonomous flight remains an ongoing challenge owing to manufacturing, actuation, and control considerations. In this article, we report the design and the control system of an all servo-driven bird-like flapping-wing aerial robot called USTBird. Different from most common flapping mechanisms combining gear transmission and motor, USTBird is driven by two independently programmable servos, which makes the wingbeat kinematics of USTBird diverse and enables it to do some agile aerobatic maneuvers. The enhanced controllability brought by the servo-driven method allows USTBird to produce both flight force and control force relying solely on the flapping wings, and exert decoupled control torques about all three body axes without a controllable tail. The flapping gait optimization problem is considered for USTBird, and three different kinds of drive signals are compared for larger aerodynamic forces generation. Toward practical applications, an outdoor flight task of autonomous patrol around a building, which can be subdivided into a coordinated takeoff and a low-altitude patrol and reconnaissance, is conducted on the robot with a good performance. 

An All Servo-Driven Bird-Like Flapping-Wing Aerial Robot Capable of Autonomous Flight

Abstract In this article, a robot skills learning framework is developed, which considers both motion modeling and execution. In order to enable the robot to learn skills from demonstrations, a learning method called dynamic movement primitives (DMPs) is introduced to model motion. A staged teaching strategy is integrated into DMPs frameworks to enhance the generality such that the complicated tasks can be also performed for multi-joint manipulators. The DMP connection method is used to make an accurate and smooth transition in position and velocity space to connect complex motion sequences. In addition, motions are categorized into different goals and durations. It is worth mentioning that an adaptive neural networks (NNs) control method is proposed to achieve highly accurate trajectory tracking and to ensure the performance of action execution, which is beneficial to the improvement of reliability of the skills learning system. The experiment test on the Baxter robot verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method. 

/pdf/dynamic-movement-primitives-based-robot-skills-learning-r7sfy0hp.pdf

Dynamic Movement Primitives Based Robot Skills Learning

Flapping-wing flight, as the distinctive flight method retained by natural flying creatures, contains profound aerodynamic principles and brings great inspirations and encouragements to drone developers. Though some ingenious flapping-wing robots have been designed during the past two decades, development and application of autonomous flapping-wing robots are less successful and still require further research. Here, we report the development of a servo-driven bird-like flapping-wing robot named USTBird-I and its application in autonomous airdrop. Inspired by birds, a camber structure and a dihedral angle adjustment mechanism are introduced into the airfoil design and motion control of the wings, respectively. Computational fluid dynamics simulations and actual flight tests show that this bionic design can significantly improve the gliding performance of the robot, which is beneficial to the execution of the airdrop mission. Finally, a vision-based airdrop experiment has been successfully implemented on USTBird-I, which is the first demonstration of a bird-like flapping-wing robot conducting an outdoor airdrop mission. 

A Bio-Inspired Flapping-Wing Robot With Cambered Wings and Its Application in Autonomous Airdrop

We investigate the trajectory tracking problem of a quadrotor-slung-load system with unknown load mass in the presence of pre-specified performance specifications imposed on both the position of the load and the cable direction. In contrast to existing literature where performance bounds are only function of time, here we propose a revised performance bound which is also function of the tracking errors associated with the slung load subsystem. The unknown load mass is obtained from an adaptive law that is designed within the framework of backstepping. All system errors are shown to be uniformly ultimately bounded, with simultaneous guarantees of prescribed accuracy and constraint satisfaction. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate and assess the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed methodology. 

On dynamic performance control for a quadrotor-slung-load system with unknown load mass

Purpose Bionic flapping-wing aerial vehicles (FWAVs) mimic natural flyers to generate the lift and thrust, such as birds, bats and insects. As an important component of the FWAVs, the flapping wings are crucial for the flight performance. The aim of this paper is to study the effects of different wings on aerodynamic performance. Design/methodology/approach Inspired by the wings structure of birds, the authors design four cambered wings to analyze the effect of airfoils on the FWAVs aerodynamic performance. The authors design the motor-driven mechanism of flapping wings, and realize the control of flapping frequency. Combined with the wind tunnel equipment, the authors build the FWAVs force test platform to test the static and dynamic aerodynamic performance of different flapping wings under the state variables of flapping frequency, wind speed and inclined angle. Findings The results show that the aerodynamic performance of flapping wing with a camber of 20 mm is the best. Compared with flat wing, the average lift can be improved by 59.5%. Originality/value Different from the traditional flat wing design of FWAVs, different cambered flapping wings are given in this paper. The influence of airfoils on aerodynamic performance of FWAVs is analyzed and the optimal flapping wing is obtained. 

Design and performance analysis of different cambered wings for flapping-wing aerial vehicles based on wind tunnel test

In this paper, a miniature video stabilization system is designed to deal with the image jitter and motion blur problem for flapping-wing aerial vehicles (FWAVs). First, a light and two-axis pan–tilt (about 13[Formula: see text]g) is built for the FWAV to counteract most of the jitter effect. Then, an electronic image stabilization method combined with a Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMSs) gyroscope is proposed to further stabilize the images. Finally, flight experiment results show that the designed video stabilization system effectively improves the quality of aerial videos.

A Miniature Video Stabilization System for Flapping-Wing Aerial Vehicles

We propose a new and versatile way for optical orbital rotation of microscopic sized multi-particle arrays in a transversely misaligned dual-fiber optical trap. A PDMS(Polydimethylsiloxane) chip is designed to adjust the transverse offset distance between two fibers. It is possible to control the orbital rotation frequency and perimeter by varying the transverse offset distance without external influences. Experimental results show that there is a threshold value, beyond which the particles will rotate in a certain trajectory. The threshold values of the transverse offset required to initiate orbital rotation was found to be different for different number particle arrays. The proposed optical manipulation technique has been verified to be useful for cell sorting, optical binding and assembly of microstructures.

Orbital rotation of multi-particle arrays in a dual-fiber optical trap

In this paper, a rigorous orbit attitude estimation algorithm for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) spacecrafts is presented in the presence of earth oblateness and atmospheric drag. The spacecraft orbit attitude kinematics for arbitrary eccentric orbit is derived. The variational orbit angular velocity is computed using the inertial position and velocity. The effects of the orbit estimation precision with respect to orbit attitude determination are analyzed. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) is derived to estimate the orbit attitude, inertial position and velocity, as well as gyro bias. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm has better estimation performance for the orbit attitude over than the traditional algorithm.

A Rigorous Orbit Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Low-Earth-Orbit Spacecrafts

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A Miniature Video Stabilization System for Flapping-Wing Aerial Vehicles

Orbital rotation of multi-particle arrays in a dual-fiber optical trap

A Rigorous Orbit Attitude Estimation Algorithm for Low-Earth-Orbit Spacecrafts