Bat-inspired robot swoops and dives like the real thing

Technology 1 February 2017
Bat-like robot

Ramezani, Chung, Hutchinson, Sci. Robot. 2, eaal2505 (2017)

It swoops, flaps and dives just like the animals it was designed to mimic. Inspired by the flexibility and agility of bats and their wings, a team of engineers has come up with an autonomous flying robot with the same skills – one that could ultimately be used to survey building sites from the air.

Aerial robots have previously taken inspiration from insects and birds, but bats are a tougher challenge for roboticists because of their complicated skeletons and irregular flight patterns.

“Bats have a very complex body morphology compared to birds or insects. Their wings are very articulated, with many joints,” says team member Alireza Ramezani at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


The wings of Bat Bot, as the robot is affectionately dubbed, are simplified versions of the original. Bat wings have over 40 joints for adjusting their shape during flight, but recreating this joint-for-joint would have made the robot far too bulky.

Instead, Bat Bot has a nine-joint wing structure that allows it to move each wing in a range of directions. The joints are made of lightweight carbon fibre, with an ultra-thin silicone membrane that mimics stretchy bat skin covering each wing.

The membrane lets Bat Bot change its wing shape while keeping the wing surface taut – an ability unique to bats. No other material comes as close to matching the properties of bat skin, says Ramezani. “If you cover a skeleton with other stretchable materials it will be fixed and cannot morph or change its shape.”

The finished robot weighs 93 grams and is controlled using tiny motors in its backbone. It also has onboard sensors that measure the angle of the joints to help it adjust its wing position on the go. Real bats have a network of sensory organs across their skin that researchers think provides them with information about the flow of air over their wings.

In tests, Bat Bot performed a banking turn and a steep diving manoeuvre similar to what bats do when pursuing prey.

The extreme flexibility of bat wings could inspire a new generation of nimble unmanned aerial vehicles, says Bharathram Ganapathisubramani at the University of Southampton, UK. Bat-inspired drones are also less likely to be thrown off course by strong winds, he says.

Ramezani envisages future versions of Bat Bot being used to monitor construction sites and warn workers of impending dangers, but the researchers first need to work out how to make it land safely. It could then perch in different locations to save energy and extend its flight time.

Journal reference: Science Robotics, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aal2505

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