/ News
Holy flight plan: Researchers build a robotic bat wing
A robotic bat wing lets researchers measure forces, joint movements, and flight parameters — and learn more about how the real thing operates in nature.
A robotic bat wing flapping in a university lab is providing researchers with a new appreciation for the wonders of nature and hints at a new generation of mini flapping planes to be deployed on reconnaissance missions.
The robot is modeled after the lesser dog-faced fruit bat and flaps while attached to instruments that measure the forces generated by various joints, allowing the Brown University researchers to calculate the energy required to execute wing movements.
"A lot of my interest in bat flight is in understanding how they fly and in particular how their wing motion influences their aerodynamic force generation," Joseph Bahlman, a graduate student at the university who led the robotic bat project, told NBC News.
The problem is that studying wing motion in live bats is difficult since bats change several parameters at once depending whether they want to fly slower or faster, turn one way or another, or any other aerial maneuver.
"The solutionto that was to build a robotic bat wing that I can then systematically control the motion parameters," Bahlman said.
While detailed experimental results are forthcoming, a case-study experiment showed that by folding the robotic wing on the upstroke, as real bats do, the robot is able to increase net lift by 50 percent.
This type of data could aid the design of small flapping aircraft for recon missions. "Things that are a foot, foot and a half wingspan that you can send into places that aren't safe for people like abandoned mine shafts or to inspect weak spots around bridges," Bahlman said.
Building the robot, Balhman added in a news release, taught the team many lessons “about how bats work from trying to duplicate them and having things go wrong.”
For example, the joint used to build the robot’s elbow kept ripping apart during test flights, forcing the researchers to wrap it steel cable similar to the way ligaments hold joints together in animals. Real bats, it turns out, have large muscles at the elbow that help prevent the joint for breaking.
Going forward, the team aims to test out different wing materials, aiming to optimize their design. For example, Bahlman told NBC News he wanted to compare a stretchy membrane like a live bat wing with a non-stretchy material. He suspects the stretchy skin of bat wings enhances flight performance.
"There are just tons of questions," he said. "This made for just a really powerful research tool."
If this research is ultimately paired with other bat-inspired technology, such as an echolocation-based navigation tool that recently allowed a blind college to ride a mountain bike, future robots will be quite batty indeed.
A paper describing the robot was published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/holy-flight-plan-researchers-build-robotic-bat-wing-1C8506275
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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