MechE Colloquium: Sensing for animal flight control

Abstract: 

Flying animals modify their airframe to stabilise flight and execute manoeuvres. Some responses to perturbations are passive but, typically, sensory arrays provide information regarding the current state of the body parts (eg. position, velocity, loading) and the controller makes active adjustments. Insects have many mechanosensors on the wings that encode salient aerodynamic and inertial features; they are the input layer for the flight controller. The non-random arrangement of the sensory arrays offers insight into morphological computing (a.k.a. embodied intelligence) strategies that are both effective and efficient.
I will give examples from multi-disciplinary research efforts—covering mosquitoes, dragonflies and birds of prey—where the co-evolution of sensory systems with locomotor morphology has resulted in elegant solutions for measuring strain fields and aerodynamic flow fields. I will also present examples of bio-inspired sensor systems that have been incorporated into aerial robotics that demonstrate novel bio-inspired capabilities. 


Biography: 

Richard’s research blends biology and engineering, using biomechanics as a tool to investigate how the physical environment shapes the morphology and control systems of flying animals. He has investigated the sensory systems animals use to fly, their morphology and aerodynamics. He has also applied biological insights from these experiments to aerial robots. Richard joined the Structure and Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, in 2013 after reading Biological Sciences at Exeter, a PhD/DPhil in Oxford, postdoctoral positions in Oxford and Bath, and holding EPSRC Fellowship. He is currently Professor of Comparative Biomechanics.