This paper describes the experimental design, implementation, and testing of a network for tele-command, control, and communications of micro robots over long distances. The system utilizes commercial low bandwidth satellites to transmit near real-time video and leverages micro-robot platform synergies for commandcommunications relays. The system is capable of controlling micro ground vehicles ...

Here we explain how flapping micro air vehicles (MAVs) can be designed at different scales, from bird to insect size. The common believe is that micro fixed wing airplanes and helicopters outperform MAVs at bird scale, but become inferior to flapping MAVs at the scale of insects as small as fruit flies. Here we present our experience with designing and building micro flapping air vehicles that ...

A micro air vehicle is a flight system being designed for operation within urban environments. Such vehicles are small and highly agile but often have limited control authority. This paper investigates the use of morphing as an effector to provide control authority. Simple mechanisms for morphing are designed to twist the wings of a 24 in vehicle and to curl the wings of a 12 in vehicle. Flight...

Flapping-wing robotic insects are small, highly maneuverable flying robots inspired by biologicalinsects and useful for a wide range of tasks, including exploration, environmental monitoring, searchand rescue, and surveillance. Recently, robotic insects driven by piezoelectric actuators have achievedthe important goal of taking off with external power; however, fully autonomous operation requir...

Small unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and micro air vehicles (MAVs) have payload and power constraints that prohibit heavy sensors and powerful processors. This paper presents real-time attitude and position estimation solutions that use small, inexpensive sensors and low-power microprocessors. In connection with an Extended Kalman Filter attitude estimation scheme, a novel method for dealing with...

Future Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) and Micro Air Vehicles (MAV) will fly in urban areas and very close to obstacles. We built a miniature (35 cm, 0.840 kg) electrically-powered aircraft which uses a motion-sensing visual system to follow terrain and avoid obstacles. Signals from the 20-photoreceptor onboard eye are processed by 19 custom Elementary Motion Detection (EMD) circuits which are deri...