Robo-Raven and More Bioinspired Robotics

The natural world is full of amazing patterns, structures, and mechanisms. The moment anyone steps foot in the middle of a natural setting, they are bombarded immediately with billions of scientific wonders right at their fingertips. From the regeneration of life every spring and the way a bird folds air over its wings, to the folding of protein in our cells every second or the way a fish’s gills extracts oxygen from water, nature is full of these wonderful phenomena. But what are the underlying mechanisms and physical principles behind these scientific wonders?

Would it be possible to replicate or mimic them for human applications? Bioinspired robotics is simply that; robotic platforms and applications that have been inspired or informed by the billions of natural phenomena that happen everyday. This lecture will discuss the job of bioinspired roboticist to curiously dive deep into natural mechanisms and extract usable inspiration for engineering and robotic applications. It will present the process by which this is done as well as some state-of-the-art examples of this process. Finally, this lecture will include the presentation of Robo Raven, a Flapping-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that can fly like a bird and can perform many applications better than current UAV platforms.

Dr. Lena Johnson is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Maryland’s Mechanical Engineering program. She has always been interested in the intersection between exploration of the natural world and engineering solutions. Her research focused on the design and development of bioinspired robotics and their potential use in the natural environment. In particular, she has worked on many robotic projects including the development of a robotic hand made of soft materials that could compliantly bend to shape and a Flapping-Wing UAV called Robo Raven that flew like a bird in real-world environments.  (https://clark125.umd.edu/student-story/lena-johnson)