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According to foreign media IEEE Spectrum, researchers have recently developed a new type of drone equipped with artificial elytra. The artificial elytra is made to mimic the elytra of insects, allowing the drone to be like an insect and successfully "flip the heel" when facing the sky on all fours.
After the insect "four feet to the sky", the balance of the body is adjusted by the elytra
A team of researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland has published a new study in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, mimicking the elytra of ladybugs and creating artificial elytra elytra) of drones.
The researchers designed artificial elytras similar to micro aerial vehicles (MAVs), but the device comes with actuators. Drones with artificial elytra have a self-righting function, and when the drone is upside down or flipped, it can return to normal by itself through the artificial elytra. The researchers said that the imitation artificial elytra can not only "rescue" the fixed-wing drone from dangerous situations, reduce the flight accidents of the drone, but also save the energy of the drone.
Elytra are the black-red spotted outer wings of ladybirds. When the ladybug is "four feet to the sky", the ladybug will stabilize its body in a very short period of time (0.00 seconds) through its elytra wings, and then extend its legs or hindwings to achieve self-correction by leaning over. The new type of drone is also designed based on this principle.
The researchers tested artificial elytra wings of different lengths and different curvatures to find the best combination with fixed-wing drones. The curvature angle of the artificial elytra has little effect on the automatic straightening function of the drone, but the length of the artificial elytra will affect the straightening effect. Experiments have found that longer elytra wings can help drones complete auto-alignment faster.
The study also conducted experiments on the flying environment of drones. The researchers tested the flight effect of drones equipped with long elytra on the ground with different inclinations of 10°, 20° and 30°, and they found that the drones can complete self-correction through elytra wings on the ground at basically any oblique angle. In addition, they tested the drone's flight on sidewalks, coarse sand, fine sand, rocks, shells, sawdust and grass. Experiments have shown that in addition to grass and fine sand, the success rate of the new drone to complete self-correction in other scenarios has reached 100%.
They also found that elytra can offset their own weight during flight by non-negligible lift, saving the aircraft's energy.
The drone mimics the Beetle for a new design
Researchers say that artificial elytra are now made from some common materials based on scale models of beetle elytra. In the future, they will optimize the details of artificial elytra to help drones self-correct on more complex terrain.
The research team said they also wanted to get some design inspiration from other features of the beetle's elytra. Researcher Charalampos Vourtsis explains: "We hope that drones can fold up artificial elytras when flying in some places with bushes, stones or other obstacles, like beetles. ”
He believes that folded artificial elytras can not only help drones complete long-distance flights with longer wings, but also help drones move quickly and land safely in tight spaces.
<h2>Conclusion: Insects are "inspiring" more bionic drones</h2>
By imitating the elytra and "turning" of ladybugs, the Swiss research team also added a new pair of "artificial elytra" to the drone, so that the drone can resume flight autonomously in situations such as inversion.
In fact, there are not a few cases of drones learning from insects. Previously, the German research team added auditory equipment to the drone to achieve "listening and positioning" like an insect. MIT's Yufeng Chen also refers to the flight of insects, so that the drone can quickly resume flight after colliding and rolling in flight. With the continuous deepening of related research, bionic drones may bring more surprises to people.
Source: IEEE Spectrum