Arizona State University

Karishma Patnaik

Wenlong Zhang

Shatadal Mishra

Seyed Mostafa Rezayat Sorkhabadi

Panagiotis Polygerinos

Pham Huy Nguyen

Michael Ploughe

Zachary Chase

Yizhuang Garrard

A fabric-based, soft-bodied aerial robot includes contact-reactive perching and embodied impact protection structures while remaining lightweight and streamlined. The aerial robot is operable to 1) pneumatically vary its body stiffness for collision resilience and 2) utilize a hybrid fabric-based, bistable (HFB) grasper to perform passive grasping. When compared to conventional rigid drone frames the soft-bodied aerial robot successfully demonstrates its ability to dissipate impact from head-on collisions and maintain flight stability without any structural damage. Furthermore, in dynamic perching scenarios the HFB grasper is capable to convert impact energy upon contact into firm grasp through rapid body shape conforming in less than 4 ms.

Systems and methods for a soft-bodied aerial robot for collision resilience and contact-reactive perching

Various embodiments of a variable geometry quadrotor with a compliant frame are disclosed, which adapts to tight spaces and obstacles by way of passive rotation of its arms.

Systems and methods for a spring-augmented quadrotor for interactions with constrained environments

Various embodiments of a system and associated method for a thrust-vector controlled unmanned aerial and ground vehicle are disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for a thrust-vector controlled hybrid unmanned aerial and ground vehicle with improved grasping

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Tempe, AZ, United States of America

Karishma Patnaik