The Harvard RoboBee has long shown it can fly, dive, and hover like a real insect. But what good is the miracle of flight without a safe way to land?
A storied engineering achievement by the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory, the RoboBee is now outfitted with its most reliable landing gear to date, inspired by one of nature’s most graceful landers: the crane fly.
Publishing in Science Robotics, the team led by Robert Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), has given their flying robot a set of long, jointed legs that help ease its transition from air to ground. The robot has also received an updated controller that helps it decelerate on approach,…