Distinguished Speaker Series: Insect-scale aerial robots

Join us on Jan 14, 2025 to hear from Professor Kevin Chen on his research on insect-scale aerial robots driven by soft artificial muscles.

This event is free of charge.

We're excited to see you!

ABOUT THE TALK

Flapping-wing flight at the insect-scale is incredibly challenging. Insect muscles not only power flight but also absorb in-flight collisional impact, making these tiny flyers simultaneously agile and robust. In contrast, existing aerial robots have not demonstrated these properties. Rigid robots are fragile against collisions, while soft-driven systems suffer limited speed, precision, and controllability. In this talk, I will describe our effort in developing a new class of bio-inspired micro-flyers, ones that are powered by high bandwidth soft actuators and equipped with rigid appendages. We constructed the first heavier-than-air aerial robot powered by soft artificial muscles, which can demonstrate a 1000-second hovering flight. In addition, our robot can recover from in-flight collisions and perform somersaults within 0.10 seconds. This work demonstrates for the first time that soft aerial robots can achieve agile and robust flight capabilities absent in rigid-powered micro-aerial vehicles, thus showing the potential of a new class of hybrid soft-rigid robots. I will also discuss our recent progress in incorporating onboard sensors, electronics, and batteries.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Kevin Chen is an associate professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, USA. He received his PhD in Engineering Sciences at Harvard University in 2017 and his bachelor’s degree in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 2012. His research interests include high bandwidth soft actuators, microrobotics, and aerial robotics. He has published in top journals including Nature, Science Robotics, Advanced Materials, PNAS, Nature Communications, IEEE TRO, and Journal of Fluid Mechanics. He is a recipient of the Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, multiple best paper awards (TRO 21, RAL 20, IROS 15), and the Ruth and Joel Spira Teaching Excellence Award.

WHERE:

In-person: MIT HK Innovation Node, 1/F, Hong Kong Productivity Council, 78 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong
Enquiries: [email protected]

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Host or Publisher MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node