A Colorado man made history at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) this summer when he became the first bilateral shoulder-level amputee to wear and simultaneously control two of the Laboratory’s Modular Prosthetic Limbs.

Most importantly, Les Baugh, who lost both arms in an electrical accident 40 years ago, was able to operate the system by simply thinking about moving his limbs, performing a variety of tasks during a short training period. These Prosthetic Robot Arms are opening gates to new human cyborgs.

One other DARPA-funded robotic limb controlled by thoughts alone — actually make that two, because Colorado man Les Baugh had two bionic arms attached from shoulder level. Baugh got them this summer, 40 years after losing both arms, as part of a Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program test run at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The project’s researchers have been developing these Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL) over the past decade, but they say Baugh is the “first bilateral shoulder-level amputee” to wear two MPLs at the same time. Unlike Jan Scheuermann who controlled a robotic arm with a pair of neural implants, though, Baugh had to undergo a procedure called targeted muscle reinnervation, which reassigned the nerves that once controlled his arms and hands.

Once that was done, the team recorded the patterns his brain makes for each muscle he moves, and then they had him control virtual arms to prepare for the real things. Since his arms were cut off from the shoulder, they also had to design a custom socket for his torso where the prosthetics can be attached. All their preparations were worth it in the end, though, as Baugh turned out to be a brilliant test subject: after just 10 days of training, he was already moving cups from one shelf to the other just by thinking it.

Resources

© 2015 The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC. All rights reserved.

http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2014/141216.asp

http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/18/double-amputee-mind-controlled-robot-arms/

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Keywords: Nano, Silver, Ink, Inkjet, Printer, Printed Electronics, 31041

Printed Electronics by Robotpark

Researchers at “Robotpark R&D Labs” has developed an easy-to-use “conductive printer ink” which can print electronic boards with an ordinary inkjet printer. With this ink, you only draw your curcuit board in any drawing software, send it to your desktop printer and voila. “It is like magic...” says Harry Eliot one of the test engineers of the project.

After adding this ink to your desktop printers cartridge everything is ready. This process may be a little bit frustrating, but after you have successfully installed your cartridge, the magic begins.

The Nano Technology Beneath

The evolution of producing printed electronics — printing semiconducting organic polymers or conductive ink on paper or plastic to create electronically functional devices is a new approach.  These new manufacturing methods will play an increasingly important role in a wide range of applications. Silver Nano Particles which are smaller then 20nm are added to a special solvent, this makes the “Conductive Ink” but it is not finished. You have to use a special A4 Paper to ensure pattern integrity

Available in three different substrates, the self-sintering special inkjet media utilizes an adhesion layer, a micro-porous, solvent-absorbing layer for flexibility, print quality and instant dry benefits. The proprietary chemical sintering agents produce instant electrical conductivity and the resultant patterns look like gold foil stamping.

The Products

Robotpark’s Smart Conductive Series makes time-consuming and expensive thermal curing and other additional processes that are generally used to produce conductors no longer required.

Creating functional electronic devices faster, more easily and more cost-effectively is vital to research institutions, development engineers, students and electronical device developers. Applications, once too complex are now easy with Robotpark’s SCS (Smart Conductive Series) Silver Nano Inkjet Tech.

Whether it be in research labs or in test areas, development engineers can print with Robotpark’s SCS (Smart Conductive Series) on a variety of specially treated media for conductivity in seconds without heat or flash exposure sintering.

Links

You can order test samples with the following link if you are interested in this technology.
http://www.robotpark.com/Silver-Nano-Particle-Printer-Ink-10ml

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A father who lost his arm in an accident six years ago has been given a new lease of life by a hi-tech bionic hand which is so precise he can type again. Nigel Ackland, 53, has been fitted with the Terminator-like carbon fibre mechanical hand which he can control with movements in his upper arm. The new bebionic3 myoelectric hand, which is also made from aluminium and alloy knuckles, moves like a real human limb by responding to Nigel’s muscle twitches.

Incredibly, the robotic arm is so sensitive it means the father-of-one can touch type on a computer keyboard, peel vegetables, and even dress himself for the first time in six years.

Resources

http://bebionic.com

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“Electrically-Charged Hydrogel has applications for soft robotics and biomedical fields”

Article Summary - By Randall Marsh
Soft robotics is a quickly emerging field that takes a lot of inspiration from marine creatures like squids and starfish. A light-controlled hydrogel was recently developed that could be used for control of these new robotic devices, but now researchers at North Carolina State University are taking the development of soft robotic devices to a new level with electrically-charged hydrogels.

What is IONOPRINTING ?

Researchers at NC State have developed a method called ‘ionoprinting’ with the capability to pattern and actuate hydrated gels in two and three dimensions by locally patterning ions using electric fields. The ability to pattern, structure, re-shape and actuate hydrogels is important for biomimetics, soft robotics, cell scaffolding and biomaterials.

The ionic binding changes the local mechanical properties of the gel to induce relief patterns and in some cases evokes localized stresses large enough to cause rapid folding. These ionoprinted patterns are stable for months, yet the ionoprinting process is fully reversible by immersing the gel in a chelator. The mechanically patterned hydrogels exhibit programmable temporal and spatial shape transitions and serve as a basis of a new class of soft actuators able to gently manipulate objects both in air and in liquid.

The paper, “Reversible patterning and actuation of hydrogels by electrically assisted ionoprinting” is co-authored by Etienne Palleau, Daniel Morales, Michael Dickey and Orlin Velev and published in Nature Communications. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation Triangle MRSEC program and the French DGA.

Resource Links:

http://ionoprinting.com/

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130802/ncomms3257/fig_tab/ncomms3257_F1.html

http://www.gizmag.com/electrically-charged-hydrogel-soft-robotics/28576/

Video – http://youtu.be/9SXWJP1KK-8

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Surgery to relieve the damaging pressure caused by hemorrhaging in the brain is a perfect job for a robot. That is the basic premise of a new image-guided surgical system under development at Vanderbilt University. It employs steerable needles about the size of those used for biopsies to penetrate the brain with minimal damage and suction away the blood clot that has formed.The system is described in an article accepted for publication in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. It is the product of an ongoing collaboration between a team of engineers and physicians headed by Assistant Professor Robert J. Webster III and Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery Kyle Weaver.

Brain clots are leading cause of death, disability

The odds of a person getting an intracerebral hemorrhage are one in 50 over his or her lifetime. When it does occur, 40 percent of the individuals die within a month. Many of the survivors have serious brain damage.
“When I was in college, my dad had a brain hemorrhage,” said Webster. “Fortunately, he was one of the lucky few who survived and recovered fully. I’m glad I didn’t know how high his odds of death or severe brain damage were at the time, or else I would have been even more scared than I already was.”

Steerable needle could prevent “collateral damage” during surgery
Operations to “debulk” intracerebral hemorrhages are not popular among neurosurgeons: They know their efforts are not likely to make a difference, except when the clots are small and lie on the brain’s surface where they are easy to reach. Surgeons generally agree that there is a clinical benefit from removing 25-50 percent of a clot but that benefit can be offset by the damage that is done to the surrounding tissue when the clot is removed. Therefore, when a serious clot is detected in the brain, doctors take a “watchful waiting” approach – administering drugs that decrease the swelling around the clot in hopes that this will be enough to make the patient improve without surgery.

For the last four years, Webster’s team has been developing a steerable needle system for “transnasal” surgery: operations to remove tumors in the pituitary gland and at the skull base that traditionally involve cutting large openings in a patient’s skull and/or face. Studies have shown that using an endoscope to go through the nasal cavity is less traumatic, but the procedure is so difficult that only a handful of surgeons have mastered it.

Last summer, Webster attended a conference in Italy where one of the speakers, Marc Simard, a neurosurgeon at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, ran through his wish list of useful imaginary neurosurgical devices, hoping that some engineer in the audience might one day be able to build one of them. When he described his wish to have a needle-sized robot arm to reach deep into the brain to remove clots, Webster couldn’t help smiling because the steerable needle system he had been developing was perfect for the job.

Webster’s design, which he calls an active cannula, consists of a series of thin, nested tubes. Each tube has a different intrinsic curvature. By precisely rotating, extending and retracting these tubes, an operator can steer the tip in different directions, allowing it to follow a curving path through the body. The single needle system required for removing brain clots was actually much simpler than the multi-needle transnasal system.

I think this can save a lot of lives.When Webster returned, he told Weaver about the potential new application. The neurosurgeon was quite supportive: “I think this can save a lot of lives. There are a tremendous number of intracerebral hemorrhages and the number is certain to increase as the population ages.”

Graduate student Philip Swaney, who is working on the system, likes the fact it is closest to commercialization of all the projects in Webster’s Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory. “I like the idea of working on something that will begin saving lives in the very near future,” he said.

Active cannula removed 92 percent of clots in simulations
The brain-clot system only needs two tubes: a straight outer tube and a curved inner tube. Both are less than one twentieth of an inch in diameter. When a CT scan has determined the location of the blood clot, the surgeon determines the best point on the skull and the proper insertion angle for the probe. The angle is dialed into a fixture, called a trajectory stem, which is attached to the skull immediately above a small hole that has been drilled to enable the needle to pass into the patient’s brain.

The surgeon positions the robot so it can insert the straight outer tube through the trajectory stem and into the brain. He also selects the small inner tube with the curvature that best matches the size and shape of the clot, attaches a suction pump to its external end and places it in the outer tube.

Guided by the CT scan, the robot inserts the outer tube into the brain until it reaches the outer surface of the clot. Then it extends the curved, inner tube into the clot’s interior. The pump is turned on and the tube begins acting like a tiny vacuum cleaner, sucking out the material. The robot moves the tip around the interior of the clot, controlling its motion by rotating, extending and retracting the tubes. According to the feasibility studies the researchers have performed, the robot can remove up to 92 percent of simulated blood clots.

“The trickiest part of the operation comes after you have removed a substantial amount of the clot. External pressure can cause the edges of the clot to partially collapse making it difficult to keep track of the clot’s boundaries,” said Webster. The goal of a future project is to add ultrasound imaging combined with a computer model of how brain tissue deforms to ensure that all of the desired clot material can be removed safely and effectively.

Source

By David Salisbury, Vanderbilt University

Links

http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/robotics/newsid=31772.php#ixzz2bVYo7TZe

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The nanorobots—a collection of DNA molecules, some attached to antibodies—were designed to seek a specific set of human blood cells and attach a fluorescent tag to the cell surfaces. Details of the system were published online in Nature Nanotechnology.

“This opens up the possibility of using such molecules to target, treat or kill specific cells without affecting similar healthy cells,”

said the study’s senior investigator, Milan Stojanovic, PhD, assoc. prof. of medicine and of biomedical engineering at Columbia Univ. Medical Center.

“In our experiment, we tagged the cells with a fluorescent marker; but we could replace that with a drug or with a toxin to kill the cell.”

Though other DNA nanorobots have been designed to deliver drugs to cells, the advantage of Stojanovic’s fleet is its ability to distinguish cell populations that do not share a single distinctive feature.

Cells, including cancer cells, rarely possess a single, exclusive feature that sets them apart from all other cells. This makes it difficult to design drugs without side effects. Drugs can be designed to target cancer cells with a specific receptor, but healthy cells with the same receptor will also be targeted.

The only way to target cells more precisely is to identify cells based on a collection of features. “If we look for the presence of five, six or more proteins on the cell surface, we can be more selective,” Stojanovic said. Large cell-sorting machines have the ability to identify cells based on multiple proteins, but until now, molecular therapeutics have not had that capability.

How it works

Instead of building a single complex molecule to identify multiple features of a cell surface, Stojanovic and his colleagues at Columbia used a different, and potentially easier, approach based on multiple simple molecules, which together form a robot (or automaton, as the authors prefer calling it).

To identify a cell possessing three specific surface proteins, Stojanovic first constructed three different components for molecular robots. Each component consisted of a piece of double-stranded DNA attached to an antibody specific to one of the surface proteins. When these components are added to a collection of cells, the antibody portions of the robot bind to their respective proteins (in the figure, CD45, CD3 and CD8) and work in concert.

On cells where all three components are attached, the robot is functional and a fourth component (labeled 0 below) initiates a chain reaction among the DNA strands. Each component swaps a strand of DNA with another, until the end of the swap, when the last antibody obtains a strand of DNA that is fluorescently labeled.

At the end of the chain reaction—which takes less than 15 min in a sample of human blood—only cells with the three surface proteins are labeled with the fluorescent marker.

“We have demonstrated our concept with blood cells because their surface proteins are well known, but in principle our molecules could be deployed anywhere in the body,”

Stojanovic said. In addition, the system can be expanded to identify four, five, or even more surface proteins. Now the researchers must show that their molecular robots work in a living animal; the next step will be experiments in mice.

Links

http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/2013/08/07/dna-robots-tag-cells/

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/08/dna-robots-find-and-tag-blood-cells

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Motivation: Interest in fabricating large numbers of small robots has grown recently due to applications ranging from mobile sensor networks to search and rescue. However, realizing these applications is difficult due to the extended fabrication time, cost, and fragility of current robot manufacture and design. Several mobile robots have been demonstrated at the centimeter-scale, but they generally lack robustness and cannot be easily manufactured in large numbers. These robots also require high one-time equipment costs and can take a day or more to assemble.

Objectives: The process outlined in this work uses inexpensive, compliant photo-patternable materials with the ability to embed components to combine the benefits of small-scale robots with the robustness and compliance improvements in larger-scale robots. Compliant mechanisms will improve the mobility and robustness of robots on the centimeter and millimeter-scales and can also be used to add mechanical energy storage for improved efficiency. Finally, the use of these polymers will allow many milli-robots to be fabricated in less than an hour on a benchtop instead of several weeks in a clean room or after many hours of assembly. While this process is currently limited to planar structures, separately constructed components can be stacked and folded to create more complex robots.

The objectives of this project are:
1. Development of a fabrication process that incorporates multiple UV-curable polymers with different material properties to create complex robot mechanisms.
2. Reduce feature sizes below 100 microns.
3. Robust integration of efficient actuators with robot mechanisms.
4. Test new locomotion methods to better study and understand efficient and effective locomotion at the sub-cm scale.

Overview of Approach: The milli robot prototyping process is described in the figure and video below. In addition, several mobile robots have already been fabricated and tested in this process.

Contact : 

Dr. Sarah Bergbreiter

Department of Mechanical Engineering and Institute for Systems Research
2170 Martin Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD-20742
Phone: 301-405-6506,  Email: sarahb@umd.edu

Links: 

http://robotics.umd.edu/research/projects/Bergbreiter_milli-robot.php

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Flying Machine Arena

ABOUT - Flying Machine Arena

The Flying Machine Arena (FMA) is a portable space devoted to autonomous flight. Measuring up to 10 x 10 x 10 meters, it consists of a high-precision motion capture system, a wireless communication network, and custom software executing sophisticated algorithms for estimation and control.

The motion capture system can locate multiple objects in the space at rates exceeding 200 frames per second. While this may seem extremely fast, the objects in the space can move at speeds in excess of 10 m/s, resulting in displacements of over 5 cm between successive snapshots. This information is fused with other data and models of the system dynamics to predict the state of the objects into the future.

The system uses this knowledge to determine what commands the vehicles should execute next to achieve their desired behavior, such as performing high-speed flips, balancing objects, building structures, or engaging in a game of paddle-ball. Then, via wireless links, the system sends the commands to the vehicles, which execute them with the aid of on-board computers and sensors such as rate gyros and accelerometers.

Although various objects can fly in the FMA, the machine of choice is the quadrocopter due to its agility, its mechanical simplicity and robustness, and its ability to hover. Furthermore, the quadrocopter is a great platform for research in adaptation and learning: it has well understood, low order first-principle models near hover, but is difficult to characterize when performing high-speed maneuvers due to complex aerodynamic effects. We cope with the difficult to model effects with algorithms that use first-principle models to roughly determine what a vehicle should do to perform a given task, and then learn and adapt based on flight data.

HISTORY - Flying Machine Arena 

The genesis of the Flying Machine Arena (FMA) can be traced to various research projects that date back to the 1990s. The system architecture for the FMA, for example, is the same architecture that was used for Cornell University’s Robot Soccer Team in 1998. Founded by Raffaello D’Andrea, the Cornell team featured vehicles with rudimentary local intelligence, an overhead vision system (which acted as a surrogate for GPS), a high-performance workstation for implementing computationally intensive tasks such as path planning, and a wireless link for sending commands to the vehicles.

After Cornell won the 1999 RoboCup competition in Stockholm, D’Andrea and his research team began to explore the possibility of extending the system beyond the soccer pitch and into the third dimension. Despite lacking essential technology for conducting this kind of research, they built a series of high-performance aerial vehicles, developed systems to track and control them, and made plans to construct a test-bed in which to house it all.

In 2000, they built a quadrocopter prototype (pictured below), mounted LEDs on it, and used three cameras to determine the vehicle position and attitude. Engineering student Andy Eichelberger developed the first version of the system as part of his Master of Engineering degree, which was then refined and used by Matt Earl as part of his PhD thesis.

In 2002, Master of Science students Eryk Nice and Sean Breheny began to build a high performance quadrocopter (pictured below), which was then used by Oliver Purwin for his PhD research. With propellers that were each 45cm in diameter, this vehicle was much larger than the first one, and could consume over 4000 watts of power at peak thrust. The vehicle’s high performance inertial measurement unit (the gold box in the middle of the quadrocopter) weighed more than 1kg, and was responsible for driving the vehicle’s size requirements.

In 2003, D’Andrea’s research team at Cornell received approval to convert the university’s High Voltage Laboratory – an empty 15,000 square foot building with 50-foot ceilings – into the Cornell Laboratory for Intelligent Vehicles. The goal was to transform the space into a test-bed for high performance air and ground vehicle control. At the same time, however, D’Andrea began a sabbatical to co-found Kiva Systems with partners Mick Mountz and Peter Wurman, and as a result the plans were abandoned. It has since become a large space for student projects.

Five years later, at the end of 2007, Kiva Systems was well on its way to becoming a successful robotics and logistics company, and D’Andrea decided to rejoin the academic world at ETH Zurich. The conditions for his appointment were predicated on the construction of a large, indoor space for flying vehicles: the Flying Machine Arena.

D’Andrea considers the five-year delay to be a blessing: in the interim, high-performance motion capture systems for implementing indoor GPS functionality had come into the marketplace; accurate solid-state accelerometers and rate gyros had become widely available (replacing large and expensive units with similar functionality); powerful rare earth magnet motors also became popular in this time period, resulting in high thrust-to-weight ratios for the power stages; and finally, wireless communication had become more reliable and easier to integrate into a multi-vehicle system. Says D’Andrea, “The time for the FMA had finally arrived.”

Contact Information

http://www.flyingmachinearena.org/contact/

Resource Links

http://www.flyingmachinearena.org

Youtube Video – http://youtu.be/pcgvWhu8Arc

http://www.FlyingMachineArena.org

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Bart-Smith and her colleagues at three other universities are trying to emulate the seemingly effortless but powerful swimming motions of rays by engineering their own ray-like machine modeled on nature.

They are designing an “autonomous underwater vehicle” that someday may surpass what nature has provided as a model. The vehicle has potential commercial and military applications, and could be used for undersea exploration and scientific research. Sometimes called “bio-mimicry” – the attempt to copy nature – Bart-Smith calls her work “bio-inspired.”

“We are studying a creature to understand how it is able to swim so beautifully, and we are hoping to improve upon it,” she said. “We are learning from nature, but we also are innovating; trying to move beyond emulation.”

Bart-Smith’s team, which includes researchers at U.Va., Princeton University, the University of California-Los Angeles and West Chester University, are modeling their mechanical ray on the cow-nosed ray, a species common to the western Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay.

The team members, who are experts in marine biology, biomechanics, structures, hydrodynamics and control systems, have created a prototype molded directly from a real cow-nosed ray. By studying the motions of living rays in the field and the laboratory and through dissection, this prototype attempts to replicate the near-silent flaps of the wing-like pectoral fins of a ray, to swim forward, turn, accelerate, glide and maintain position.

“Biology has solved the problem of locomotion with these animals, so we have to understand the mechanisms if we are going to not only copy how the animal swims, but possibly even to improve upon it,” Bart-Smith said.

Her team is trying to achieve optimal silent propulsion with a minimum input of energy.

The mechanical ray is remotely controlled by researchers via computer commands. The plastic body of the vehicle contains electronics and a battery, while the flexible silicone wings contain rods and cables that expand and retract and change shape to facilitate what is essentially underwater flight.

Bart-Smith’s ultimate goal is to engineer a vehicle that would operate autonomously, and could be deployed for long periods of time to collect undersea data for scientists, or as a surveillance tool for the military. It also could be scaled up, or down, to serve as a platform carrying various payloads, such as environmental monitoring instruments. For example, it possibly could be used for pollution monitoring, such as tracking the locations of underwater oil spills.

And because the vehicle looks and behaves like a common sea creature, it likely would operate in the sea without affecting natural creatures or their habitats.

The research is funded by the Office of Naval Research through its Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Program, the National Science Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Links

http://news.virginia.edu/node/19162?id=19162

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Dragonfly drone flutters about, blows minds !

With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings.

Festo isn’t quite the household name that Boston Dynamics is. (And, really, we’re not entirely sure Big Dog is a regular topic of conversation at dinner tables yet.) But, it certainly deserves just as much attention for the work they’re doing with robotics. After crafting a machine last year that soared around like a herring gull, now the company has created BionicOpter. The 17.3-inch long dragonfly drone can flutter through the air in any direction, and even hover, just like its biological inspiration. Its four carbon fiber and foil wings beat up to 20 times per-second, propelling it through the air as if it were swimming rather than flying.

Actually piloting the robo-bug is achieved through a smartphone app, but an on-board ARM-based microcontroller makes small adjustments to ensure stability during flight. There are a few important pieces of information we don’t have just yet. For one, it’s not clear how long the two-cell lithium ion battery will last, and pricing or availability are missing from the brochure (at the source link). Chances are though, you’ll never be able to afford one any way. Thankfully you can at least see this marvel of engineering in action after the break.

A Natural model for Flight

With the BionicOpter, Festo has applied these highly complex characteristics to an ultra-lightweight flying object at a technical level. For the first time, there is a model that can master more flight conditions than a helicopter, plane and glider combined.

In addition to controlling the flapping frequency and the twisting of the individual wings, each of the four wings features an amplitude controller. This means that the direction of thrust and the intensity of thrust for all four wings can be adjusted individually, thus enabling the remote-controlled dragonfly to move in almost any orientation in space. The intelligent kinematics correct any vibrations during flight and ensure flight stability both indoors and outdoors.

Integration of Functions in the Smallest of Spaces

The unique flight behaviour is made possible by the lightweight design of the model dragonfly and the integration of its functions:
sensors, actuators and mechanical components as well as communication, open and closed-loop control systems are installed ina very small space and connected to one another.

Thirteen Degrees of Freedom for Unique Flight Manoeuvres

In addition to control of the shared flapping frequency and twisting of the individual wings, each of the four wings also features an amplitude controller. The tilt of the wings determines the direction of thrust. Amplitude control allows the intensity of the thrust to be regulated. When combined, the remote-controlled dragonfly can assume almost any position in space.

Highly Integrated lightweight Design

This unique way of flying is made possible by the lightweight construction and the integration of functions: components such as sensors, actuators and mechanical components as well as open- and closed-loop control systems are installed in a very tight space and adapted to one another.

With the remote-controlled dragonfly, Festo demonstrates wireless real-time communication, a continuous exchange of information, as well as the ability to combine different sensor evaluations and identify complex events and critical states.

Highly Complex System with Easy Operation
Despite its complexity, the highly integrated system can be operated easily and intuitively via a smartphone. The flapping frequency,amplitude and installation angle are controlled by software and electronics; the pilot just has to steer the dragonfly – there is no need to coordinate the complex motion sequences.

Videos

Links

Find out more …

http://www.festo.com/en/bionicopter

http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/13165.htm

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