Up lifting research
Michelson said GTRI engineers have been working with the University of Cambridge in England.
Scientists there are expert in the aerodynamics of the hawk moth. By scrutinizing the flapping wings of this insect and others, how that motion generates lift is being unraveled. It is a complex phenomenon thought to involve the formation of wing vortices that multiply an insect's lifting power.
Furthermore, flapping wings gives an insect the ability to softly touch down, quickly lift off, rapidly alter direction, as well as hover. To control direction, insects use a complex system to vary the beating of each wing and alter how they encounter the air.
An insect moves its wings rapidly, while the body flies slowly. Compare that to the
, a vehicle that must move speedily to generate lift.
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| Entomopter researcher Robert Michelson holds a prototype of the robotic insect. Entomopters bound for Mars would have a wingspan of a little over 3 feet (1 meter).
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| The entomopter is deployed from its "mothership," a Pathfinder-like Rover.
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| Flapping its wings, the entomopter travels through the air up to 650 feet away from its parent rover.
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| Upon landing on a Martian rock, the entomopter extends its instruments to take up-close photos and samples.
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On the entomopter, a reciprocating chemical muscle generates autonomic wing beating from a liquid fuel source. The muscle provides a small amount of electricity to run onboard systems. Waste gas produced by the chemical muscle is tapped for steering the tiny robot through the air. Those gases are used over and over again to also run small navigation gear so the entomopter avoids smacking into obstacles.
Full details about how the muscle works are being kept under wraps. Michelson and his team are seeking a patent on the muscle, which is now able to generate motion at 70 cycles a second. That's enough power to fly.
Scouting party
For Mars, Michelson said that the range of the entomopter is now ballparked at some 650 feet (200 meters). Two of the robots could fly in opposite directions, thereby doubling the swath of coverage. "The actual flight range would depend on the amount of fuel that we could have onboard versus the payload we're going to carry," he said.
A surface rover could be used to deploy sets of entomopters.
Once airborne, the mini-robots would flap at low altitude over Mars, sniffing in atmospheric samples, look for minerals, and even collect rock and soil specimens. Outfitted with legs, the mechanical insects can crawl too. The winged automatons can quickly reach hard-to-get-to places, like across canyons or deep gullies - tough locales for a wheeled rover to investigate, and do so in a timely and safe manner.
Returning to home base, the entomopters suckle up to the rover, refueling themselves for another round of aerial maneuvers.
Michelson said future human expeditionary teams on Mars could count on the tiny flapping robots as advance scouts. Once let loose, the mechanized creatures would fly ahead of the explorers.
"Entomopters could let them know whether to go right or left. Without any a priori knowledge of where they're going, they could waste a lot of time going down dead-end roads," Michelson said.
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