Gabriel Hussy

Hi everyone,

I've noticed this new book, just published by the EPFL Press & CRC, I guess it might intererest some of you here...

> Bio-Inspired flying robots

[link]http://www.epflpress.com/livres/EPFL978-2-940222-19-3.html[/link]


Best Regards,

G.H.

CrateCruncher

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Who hasn't marveled at the piloting skills of a house fly while trying to smash the little hellion. I've wondered how much the Department of Defense would be willing to pay for a robotic fly. From law enforcement and urban combat to eavesdropping and other covert applications this would be an extraordinary (and kinda scary) breakthrough.

It seems to me a house fly is more sophisticated than the space shuttle in a technical sense. Not only are its vision and flight control systems uncanny, it also can self-replicate exponentially, repair itself automatically when damaged, and run on a drop of sugar!

So Gabriel, have you read the book yet? What do you think?

Allfat

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I have a friend that is a mechanical engineering student that helped a Biology Professor at my University in a study about hummingbirds. They would put strain guages on the wings of the hummingbirds and use high speed video to see what is actually going on. Pretty cool stuff.

Gabriel Hussy

Hi guys,

Yes I read this book and the content is really interesting. In fact which is really new is the intersection of several disciplines such as biology, aerodynamics, micro-engineering, micro-electronics, computer vision and of course robotics. Actually, indoor flying robots represent a largely unexplored area of robotics. For the moment just a small number of engineers have started to look at flying insects as a source of inspiration to create autonomous indoor flying robots. The approach of this kind of machines is different of most part of UAV, which can fly only in open skies far away from any object. In fact, flying within or among buildings requires completely different types of sensor and control strategies because geo-position information is no longer available in closed and cluttered environments. I guess this new approach will certainly interest a lot of people involved in aerial robotics ...

Best regards,

GH

CrateCruncher

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Unless your the bird!

gittarpikk

Let's "kick it up a notch" as Emeril sez

Have you ever done any research on Google or the tube as to how much computer power and speed is required just to do the operations of the human eye. It required (if I remember correctly) the largest computer at the time (last year) approx a month (or something like that ) to just take care of something like the black and white portion of the info from rods and cones that are there. This exampl is probably lacking in exactness....but it is fact the numbers and timeline were large for this comparison.

I would say a flys eyes would be less complicated , but in fact multiples...and there would have to be memory associated with the eye that "viewed" the object....or probably multiples of such... THEN we have to process this info, make an intelligent decision based on this info and the "create" a path or group of actions to allow the "plan" to be carried out in the "deemed" environment....monitor results (other sensors) and decide if plan is being carried out appropriately and then correct for obvious errors.

"tube" search >our< origins and ETs and the Summati and Annanakki (sp) (all off topic for this site much less this thread)and you will see loads of info about our own genetic engineering...and as I have "laugh"at the fact that science has yet to create a fly let alone a bird or human brain/robot.

Yeah, those flys are hellions...and consider also ...the energy required to preform the things it does ... Do you >really< believe it gets all its energy from a drop of sugar? That alone verifies access for energies from other dimensions (which mainstream science has verified to 12 and were proposing 21 last time I looked).

Now if i can just get this tin "saucer" to fly once its loaded with all my RC goodies........;-)

jmb52760

"That alone verifies access for energies from other dimensions (which mainstream science has verified to 12 and were proposing 21 last time I looked)."

Is there a source that you can cite for this information?

BMatthews

As for the fly's eyes if you look into it I think you'll find that the fly's eyes are different in that the sensors are external and lack the image formation of the lens like our eyes have. In effect they wear their rods and cones, or equivalent, on the outsides where there's no real ability to build up a shape but instead react more to light changes and broad color effects.