Bat-inspired landing gear for aerial drones

 

INV-20030

 

This technology will allow aerial drones to land on structures including steel frames found in residential spaces. This type of aerial drone can be used in residential spaces for surveillance and monitoring as well as energy harvesting while passively hanging from structures. Currently, there is no comparable technology reported at the concept level or demonstration. Existing approaches are limited to standard wheel-based landing gears in fixed-wing systems, conventional landing gears in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) or rotary-wing systems.

 

This invention leverages internal forces that are similar to vertebrates flyers to reorient the robot in its ballistic motion. A novel closed-loop controller is used in this model to achieve this motion and a miniaturized mechanism with considerable mechanical advantage releases a projectile pointed at the desired landing point. This mechanism is fabricated at a macro‑scale and allows for a tight integration of the landing gear and aerial robots.

 

- Allows for passive landing and hanging from structures 

- Allows for seamless and a zero-energy take-off from structures 

- Allows for safe and imperceptible drones capable of energy harvesting in dormant modes 

 

- Military application 

- Civic and smart city applications to provide situational awareness to humans 

- Internet of things and connected smart structures

 

- License

- Partnering

- Research collaboration