Inspection of tube networks is an important process in the manufacturing and maintenance of aircraft. Currently, borescopes are commonly used with limited success. To improve the inspection process, a prototype design based on a vertebra concept is introduced, analyzed, and optimized. The modular robotic inspection system (MoRIS) allows for a microsized camera to be driven noninvasively through a 3-m-long, 36-mm internal diameter tube network. MoRIS provides a complete view of the tube walls. Our system includes a localization algorithm that tracks the progress of the robot inside the tubes. This algorithm results in an experimentally validated error of 19.7 mm. Using MoRIS, operators can inspect tube networks that previously required hazardous disassembly of aircraft.

Low speed aerodynamics and its application to microflight and microaerial vehicles is an interesting problem. Small stout wings with small areas result in low Reynolds numbers. The Re's below 10³ conventional fixed wing flight is no longer possible because drag becomes the dominant force. However it is possible to induce lift using those drag forces in the same manner as some birds and insects. Flapping is a good choice for microaerial vehicles since it is a highly efficient way to produce flight and power consumption is a major concern. Both insects and birds use a complex elastodynamic system that only requires excitation at its natural frequency or some lower harmonic. The actuation device presented is based on the same flight principle of insects and small birds. It is a solid-state, resonating, elastodynamic system excited by a piezoelectric actuator. It is composed of two major components. The first component is a solid-state flexure mechanism that is used to amplify the piezoceramic output and produce the flapping motion. The second components is the piezoelectric actuator. Since piezoceramics are capacitive and possess a high energy density and efficiency they can be used to excite the device and induce a flapping motion with low power losses. This allows for long distance flights that require little energy. The complex dynamics of the device involves not only the mechanics of the actuator and flexure mechanism but the interaction of the wing and the air and the actuators driving electronics. The resulting device is an electromechanically tuned resonating microrobot actuator.

Inertially Actuated Jumping Robots (IAJR) provide a promising new means of locomotion. The difficulty of IAJR is found in the hybrid nature of the ground contact/flying dynamics. Recent research studies in our Systems Lab have provided a family tree of inertially actuated locomotion systems. The proposed Tapping Robot is the most prompt member of this tree. In this paper, a feedback linearization controller is introduced to provide controllability given the 3-dimensional motion complexity. The research objective is to create a general controller that can regulate the locomotion of Inertially Actuated Jumping Robots. The expected results can specify a desired speed and/or jump height, and the controller ensures the desired values are achieved. The controller can achieve the greatest response for the Basketball Robot at a maximum jump height of 0.25 m, which is greater than the former performance with approximately 0.18 m. The design paradigm used on the Basketball Robot was extended to the Tapping Robot. The Tapping Robot achieved a stable average forward velocity of 0.0773 m/s in simulation and 0.157 m/s in experimental results, which is faster than the forward velocity of former robot, Pony III, with 0.045 m/s.

One of the critical problems in the design of autonomous insects is power consumption. The independent control of several legs is energetically expensive, while the energy capacity of typical electrochemical batteries is quite small. The net result is autonomous robotic insects that have extremely limited range. The authors propose an alternative approach to this problem that enables autonomous robot insects that exhibit extremely high movement efficiency, and thus are capable of long range missions. Specifically, the desired limb motion is obtained by designing a lightly damped skeletal structure and exciting the skeletal structure at an appropriate resonance. The approach is called elastodynamic locomotion. Rather than altering the open-loop dynamics of the machine, as is the case with conventional-scale machine control, the control actuator serves only as an excitation source that excites the open-loop dynamics of the skeleton structure. Since the motion of the insect limbs operate at their structural resonance, the acceleration and deceleration for each motion (i.e.: stride for a walking machine) requires no power, which results in a highly efficient machine. Since the motion of the insect limbs is determined by design and not by control, the primary focus of this work is in the design of a skeletal structure that will exhibit walking motion when vibrationally excited. This paper presents various insect designs that will generate a walking or flying motion with minimal actuation.