Robotic Elytra: Insect-Inspired Protective Wings for Resilient and Multi-Modal Drones

Winged drones that fly in close proximity to obstacles or that are capable of aerial and terrestrial locomotion can benefit from protective systems that prevent damage to delicate aerial structures. Existing protective solutions focus on multi-copter drones and consist of adding structures, such as cages, mechanisms and instruments that add weight and drag. Here we describe a protective strategy for winged drones that mitigates the added weight and drag by means of increased lift generation and stall delay at high angles of attack. The proposed structure is inspired by the wing system found in beetles and consists of adding an additional set of retractable wings, named elytra, which can rapidly encapsulate the main folding wings when protection is needed.

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Dario Floreano, Charalampos Vourtsis, William John Stewart
2021
Article

Résumé

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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/290070?ln=fr

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Concepts associés (4)

Poids

Le poids est la force de la pesanteur, d'origine gravitationnelle et inertielle, exercée, par exemple, par la Terre sur un corps massique en raison uniquement du voisinage de la Terre. Son unité dans le Système international est le newton. Il est égal à l'opposé de la résultante des autres forces appliquées au centre de gravité du corps lorsque celui-ci est immobile dans le référentiel terrestre. Cette force est la résultante des efforts dus à la gravité et à la force d'inertie d'entraînement due à la rotation de la Terre sur elle-même.

Terrestrial locomotion

Terrestrial locomotion has evolved as animals adapted from aquatic to terrestrial environments. Locomotion on land raises different problems than that in water, with reduced friction being replaced by the increased effects of gravity. As viewed from evolutionary taxonomy, there are three basic forms of animal locomotion in the terrestrial environment: legged – moving by using appendages limbless locomotion – moving without legs, primarily using the body itself as a propulsive structure.

Structure

A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as biological organisms, minerals and chemicals. Abstract structures include data structures in computer science and musical form. Types of structure include a hierarchy (a cascade of one-to-many relationships), a network featuring many-to-many links, or a lattice featuring connections between components that are neighbors in space.