US team unveils flying robot bat

Researchers in the US have developed a robotic bat with soft, articulated wings that can mimic the key flight mechanisms of biological bats.

Bat Bot (B2), developed by a team led by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Caltech, could have applications where flapping-winged robots are required to operate in tight quarters with humans, and beyond where humans can safely go.

"Our work demonstrates one of the most advanced designs to date of a self-contained flapping-winged aerial robot with bat morphology that is able to perform autonomous flight," said Alireza Ramezani, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois and first author of a paper describing the breakthrough in Science Robotics. "It weighs only 93g, with dynamic wing articulations and wing conformations similar to those of biological bats."

Ramezani developed the prototype with Caltech’s Soon-Jo Chung and Seth Hutchinson at Illinois.