Robotics Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs were a flying reptile which last existed over 66 million years ago. They have undergone over 150 million years of evolution and are one of the first vertebrates known to have powered flight. They are also one of the largest flying animals known in existence. This project aims to implement lessons learned from pterosaur evolution toward developing large scale flapping flying robot platforms to answer open robotics and paleontology research questions. The development of a flying pterosaur replica can help answer open questions on weight, soaring methods, wing geometry, and wing stroke that are currently unanswered from the fossil record. Along with this, the development of a large scale flapping flying robot introduces the ability for larger payload capacity and range. This increased payload capacity enables more advanced compute and sensor integration thus enabling a wider range of missions to be performed by these systems.

DEAs and Wing Micro-Stiffness Adjustments

Pterosaurs and many other flying animals are able to make small adjustments to the stiffness of their wings when they are flying by contracting their muscles. This is a key capability of flight, especially as different wing stiffnesses are important for different flight regimes. While many current flapping wing robots ignore this functionality entirely, we are hoping to capture this phenomenon using Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs). DEAs are a type of soft robotic actuator that use low-amperage high voltage signals to rapidly strech or shrink a membrane. Our group is interested in how these lightwight and very fast actuators can be used to improve the efficiency end especially the manueverability of flipping wing drones.