Aerial robots provide valuable support in several high-risk scenarios thanks to their capability to quickly fly to locations dangerous or even inaccessible to humans. In order to fully benefit from these features, aerial robots should be easy to transport and rapid to deploy. With this aim, this paper focuses on the development of a novel pocket sized quadrotor with foldable arms. The quadrotor can be packaged for transportation by folding its arms around the main frame. Before flight, the quadrotor's arms self-deploy in 0.3 seconds thanks to the torque generated by the propellers. The paper describes the design strategies used for developing lightweight, stiff and self-deployable foldable arms for miniature quadrotors. The arms are manufactured according to an origami technique with a foldable multi-layer material. A prototype of the quadrotor is presented as a proof of concept and performance of the system is assessed.

Science instructors from a wide range of disciplines agree that hands-on laboratory components of courses are pedagogically necessary (Freedman, 1997). However, certain shortcomings of current laboratory exercises have been pointed out by several authors (Mataric, 2004; Hofstein and Lunetta, 2004). The overarching theme of these analyses is that hands-on components of courses tend to be formulaic, closed-ended, and at times outdated. To address these issues, we envision a novel platform that is not only a didactic tool but is also an experimental testbed for users to play with different ideas in evolutionary robotics (Nolfi and Floreano, 2000), neural networks, physical simulation, 3D printing, mechanical assembly, and embedded processing. Here, we introduce RoboGen™: an open-source software and hardware platform designed for the joint evolution of robot morphologies and controllers a la Sims (1994); Lipson and Pollack (2000); Bongard and Pfeifer (2003). Robo- Gen has been designed specifically to allow evolved robots to be easily manufactured via widely available desktop 3D-printers, and the use of simple, open-source, low-cost, offthe- shelf electronic components. RoboGen features an evolution engine complete with a physics simulator, as well as utilities both for generating design files of body components for 3D printing, and for compiling neural-network controllers to run on an Arduino microcontroller board.

Robots capable of hover flight in constrained indoor environments have many applications, however their range is constrained by the high energetic cost of airborne locomotion. Perching allows flying robots to scan their environment without the need to remain aloft. This paper presents the design of a mechanism that allows indoor flying robots to attach to vertical surfaces. To date, solutions that enable flying robot with perching capabilities either require high precision control of the dynamics of the robot, or a mechanism robust to high energy impacts. In this article, we propose a perching mechanism comprising a compliant deployable pad and a passive self-alignment system, that does not require any active control during the attachment procedure. More specifically, a perching mechanism using fibre-based dry adhesives was implemented on a 300 g flying platform. An adhesive pad was first modeled and optimized in shape for maximum attachment force at the low pre-load forces inherent to hovering platforms. It was then mounted on a deployable mechanism that stays within the structure of the robot during flight and can be deployed when a perching manoeuvre is initiated. Finally, the perching mechanism is integrated onto a real flying robot and successful perching manoeuvres are demonstrated as a proof of concept.

Most existing robots are designed to exploit only one single locomotion mode, such as rolling, walking, flying, swimming, or jumping, which limits their flexibility and adaptability to different environments where specific and different locomotion capabilities could be more effective. Here we introduce the concept and the design of a flying robot with Adaptive Morphology for Multi-Modal Locomotion. We present a prototype that can use its wings to walk on the ground and fly forward. The wings are used as whegs to move on rough terrains. This solution allows to minimize the structural mass of the robot by reusing the same structure (here the wings) for different modes of locomotion. Furthermore, the morphology of the robot is analysed and optimized for ground speed.

This paper addresses the problem of adequately protecting flying robots from damage resulting from collisions that may occur when exploring constrained and cluttered environments. A method for designing protective structures to meet the specific constraints of flying systems is presented and applied to the protection of a small coaxial hovering platform. Protective structures in the form of Euler springs in a tetrahedral configuration are designed and optimised to elastically absorb the energy of an impact while simultaneously minimizing the forces acting on the robot's stiff inner frame. These protective structures are integrated into a 282 g hovering platform and shown to consistently withstand dozens of collisions undamaged.

Flying robots have unique advantages in the exploration of cluttered environments such as caves or collapsed buildings. Current systems, however, have difficulty in dealing with the large amount of obstacles inherent to such environments. Collisions with obstacles generally result in crashes from which the platform can no longer recover. This paper presents a method to design active uprighting mechanisms for protected rotorcraft-type flying robots that allow them to become upright and subsequently take off again after an otherwise mission-ending collision. This method is demonstrated on a tailsitter flying robot, which is capable of consistently uprighting after falling on its side using a spring-based “leg” and returning to the air to continue its mission.