Griffin (winged robot)

2022: Making a Robot

In mid-December 2022, the world's first winged robot called an ornithopter was created. The UAV weighs 700 grams and is called Griffin. The device is capable of landing on a branch without any external commands and can perform tasks such as collecting samples from a tree or landing on artificial structures. It can also be used for long-range flights because it is capable of charging from solar energy.

The ornithopter has a computer and navigation system on board, and an external motion capture system is used to determine its position. In addition, it has a claw paw appendage that is precisely calibrated to capture a branch and absorb the robot's translational motion upon impact. The researchers were able to replicate their results by building two ornithopters. In the future, they hope to increase the autonomy of the robot and test it in a more unpredictable external environment.

The world's first winged robot called an ornithopter has been created

Planting an ornithopter on a perch without any outside commands required researchers to manage many factors that nature had already perfectly balanced. The ornithopter had to be able to slow down significantly on landing while maintaining flight. The claw had to be strong enough to grab the perch and support the robot's weight, while not being too heavy to hold in the air. The robot also had to be able to perceive the environment and the perch in front of it relative to its position, speed and flight path.

This is the first stage of a larger project. When an ornithopter can master autonomous planting on a tree branch, then it will have the potential to perform specific tasks, such as unobtrusive collection of biological samples or measurements from a tree. Eventually, it will be able to land even on artificial structures, opening up new applications, said Raphael Zufferei, a postdoctoral researcher at the Biorobotics Lab (developer of the robot) Intelligent Systems Laboratory.

The researchers were able to solve these problems by equipping the ornithopter with a computer and navigation system on board and using an external motion capture system to determine its position. The ornithopter's claw-paw was accurately calibrated to compensate for up-and-down swings during the flight as it tried to grasp the perch. The claw itself was designed to absorb the robot's forward momentum when dropped and quickly and firmly close, maintaining its weight. Caught, the robot remains on the perch without wasting energy.

Even with all these factors in mind, the developers managed to create two ornithopters on clawed paws that were able to replicate their landing results. In the future, they hope to refine the device and increase its autonomy so it can perform outdoor landing and manipulation tasks in a more unpredictable environment.^[1]

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