Four prototypes of biomimetic sensors have been designed and implemented for flight control of a robotic flying insect. The ocelli use four photodiodes to detect changes in light intensity in the surrounding. The halteres use piezoactuated vibrating structures to sense body rotational velocities via the Coriolis forces. The optic flow sensors consist of linear arrays of elementary motion detect...

This paper presents a new micromechanical model for a collection of cohesive zone models embedded between each mesh of a finite element-type discretization. It aims to forth fully extend the previous linear results of [1] to the calibration of damageable cohesive parameters (cohesive peak stress, critical opening displacement, cohesive energy, etc). The main idea of the approach consists in rep...

Creating insect-scale flapping flight at the 0.1 gram size has presented significant engineering challenges. A particular focus has been on creating miniature machines which generate similar wing stroke kinematics as flies or bees. Key challenges have been thorax mechanics, thorax dynamics, and obtaining high powerto-weight ratio actuators. Careful attention to mechanical design of the thorax a...

The use of high performance composite materials provides a substantial performance improvement for microrobotics. Such materials have great benefits over common MEMs materials such as better fracture toughness and fatigue properties than semiconductors, and higher stiffness to weight ratios than most metals. Composite structures yield remarkable improvements in microrobotic links and joints, as...