Index of References

Reference of Insects for Robot Bugs development

‘Bug’ is a name that is given to many invertebrate animals, or animals that do not have a backbone. Mostly it is used to describe those invertebrate animals that have a segmented, hard outer skeleton and jointed legs. These animals are called arthropods and include insects, spiders, mites, scorpions, millipedes, centipedes and crustaceans. The robot equivalents are named in the same way.

Bugs are Arthropods

Arthropods belong to the group or phylum Arthropoda, and their tough, armour-like covering is called an exoskeleton. The bodies of arthropods comprise several main divisions. Insects have three body divisions, spiders have two body divisions, while centipedes and millipedes have many small body divisions. Arthropods also have jointed legs.

The number of legs and body divisions are used to classify bugs into smaller classes: Insects, Arachnids, Myriapods and Crustaceans.

Reciprocating Chemical Muscle

The Reciprocating Chemical Muscle is a mechanism that takes advantage of the superior energy density of chemical reactions as opposed to that of electrical energy storage which is the approach currently being taken by most other µAV researchers. For example, the energy potential in one drop of gasoline is enormous compared to that which can be stored in a battery of the same volume and weight.

The RCM is a regenerative device that converts chemical energy into motion through a direct noncombustive chemical reaction. Hence, the concept of a "muscle" as opposed to an engine. There is no combustion taking place nor is there an ignition system required. The RCM is not only capable of producing autonomic wing flapping as well as small amounts of electricity for control of MEMS devices and the "nervous system" of the entomopter, but it creates enough gas to energize circulation-controlled airfoils. This means that simple autonomic (involuntary, uncontrolled) wing flapping of constant frequency and equal amplitude can result in directional control of the entomopter by varying the coefficient of lift (CL) on each of the wings, thereby inducing a roll moment about the body of the entomopter while in flight.

See: Concept 

See: Movie

Micro Air Vehicles (µAV) 

µAVs or MAV should be thought of as aerial robots, with six-degree-of-freedom and a

Today these MAV are remote controlled. Imagine in the future where there are also swarms of autonomous micro air vehicles! 

Although the 15 cm limitation may appear somewhat arbitrary, it derives from both physics and technology considerations. To fully appreciate the scale implications,  compare this class of vehicle with other familiar systems, as in Figure below. This is a plot of vehicle gross weight vs Reynolds number. The Reynolds number (a measure of size multiplied by speed) is perhaps the most useful single parameter for characterizing the flight environment. The smallest current missionised UAV is the "Sender", developed and operated by the Naval Research Laboratory. Sender boasts a 4 foot wing span and weighs only 10 pounds - impressive specifications for its near 100 mile range capability. MAVs are an order of magnitude smaller and may display a wide variety of configurations, depending on specific mission requirements.

ref: 

http://www.darpa.mil/tto/mav/mav_auvsi.html

http://www.nd.edu/~mav/links.htm

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/mav.htm

Teachers Resources

Lego

Robot Course

Mobile Robots III

Automated Car Navigation

Force Feedback Control for Teleoperation

Contact Problems

Parallel Mechanisms

Dynamic Problems in Visual Servoing

Control Issues of Bipedal Walkers

Neural and Self-Organizing Control

Multifinger Hand Design

Manipulative Robots in Non-Manufacturing Fields

Multi Agents in Manufacturing

Actuators and Sensors

Learning

Mobile Robot Trajectory Planning

Navigation

Human Task Models II

Experiments on Tactile Sensing

Parallel Manipulators

Visual Servoing Performance

Mechanics of Simple Bipedal Walkers

Intelligent Control

Grasping Formulation

Construction and Field Robotics

Machining

Actuator Control

Fuzzy Systems

Mobile Robot Localization I

Mobile Robot Map Building

Haptic Devices II