Autonomous Flight Control of a Vertical Take-off and Landing Flapping Flying Robot

2018 INNO-vation Disruptive Challenger

The ultimate goal is to have a large number of ultra-small sensor nodes with flying capabilities similar to dragonflies and perform global-scale multipoint environment scanning. The appearance of fully-fledged artificial muscle seems to be a long way off, so we first must use currently available technology: ultra-small motors. The aim is to make several tens of centimeter-sized flapping airplanes driven by gear and crank mechanisms (comparable to flying organisms). The milestone is to achieve motor function and develop autonomous flight technology. Finally, a vertical take-off and landing fluttering machine that can change the aerial altitude from hovering flight to level flight has been created. Therefore, in the INNO-vation program, we will target the autonomous flight of the flapper using machine learning.