Hummingbird robot uses AI to soon go where drones can't

Date:  May 9, 2019

Source:  Purdue University

What can fly like a bird and hover like an insect?

Your friendly neighborhood hummingbirds. If drones had this combo, they would be able to maneuver better through collapsed buildings and other cluttered spaces to find trapped victims.

Purdue University researchers have engineered flying robots that behave like hummingbirds, trained by machine learning algorithms based on various techniques the bird uses naturally every day.

This means that after learning from a simulation, the robot "knows" how to move around on its own like a hummingbird would, such as discerning when to perform an escape maneuver.

Artificial intelligence, combined with flexible flapping wings, also allows the robot to teach itself new tricks. Even though the robot can't see yet, for example, it senses by touching surfaces. Each touch alters an electrical current, which the researchers realized they could track.

"The robot can essentially create a map without seeing its surroundings. This could be helpful in a situation when the robot might be searching for victims in a dark place -- and it means one less sensor to add when we do give the robot the ability to see," said Xinyan Deng, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

The researchers will present their work on May 20 at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Montreal. A YouTube video is available at https://youtu.be/jhl892dHqfA.

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WHY SCIENTISTS TURNED THIS TAXIDERMY BIRD INTO A ROBOT

AUTHOR: MATT SIMON

06.01.18

09:00 AM

THIS WOULD BE a whole lot harder if biologist Gail Patricelli didn’t have an excellent sense of humor. Because I’m expected to sit here like a professional and not guffaw at her invention: A real-life fembot, which is probably not what you’re imagining but instead a taxidermied bird stuck on wheels. It tears around a table in her lab, turning its head back and forth, stopping periodically to bend up and down, as if pecking at the ground. Patricelli laughs as she steers it around, which I take to mean I’m allowed to laugh too.

The fembot (Patricelli’s name for the contraption) is serious science, though, a machine that’s helping her tease apart the wild—and wildly complex—mating ritual of the sage grouse, a species under threat. Because it turns out it’s pretty easy to trick a male sage grouse into trying to mate with a robot.

The male sage grouse is perhaps the only thing more absurd than a female robotic sage grouse. When they gather to display in a mating arena known as a lek, they sound more like sci-fi than anything remotely bird-like—a shreeet of a passing laser blast, and a low pop of, well, your guess is as good as mine (see video above). Males also inflate patches of thin skin on their chests. “They have a whole bunch of muscles on their chest that allows them to manipulate this like an elaborate balloon animal show,” Patricelli says.

Females are comparatively drab, which makes turning one into a convincing robot easier, though far from simple. It begins with a specimen that met an unfortunate end by way of car or powerline. Meaning, it’s going to need some reconstructive surgery. “I do my best to try to make it look realistic,” Patricelli says. “I have learned a lot and spent a lot of time in the arts and crafts section.”

Continued