Abstract
Over the past decade, aerial robots have gained significant attention in aerial photography, package delivery, and search and rescue. However, existing small aerial robots are mostly designed with rigid structures and materials, making it challenging to sustain collisions and autonomously operate in complex environments. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work on the design, control, and planning of soft and flexible aerial robots. Simulation and experimental results show that introducing compliance into the aerial robot design not only improves collision resilience, but also enables these robots to achieve autonomous perching and agile flight behaviors by leveraging collisions with the environment. In addition, I will briefly introduce other projects in my lab towards building safe, socially-adept, and trustworthy robots to interact with humans. Collectively, these projects shed light on the possible integration of mechanical design and control/autonomy for future interactive robotics.
About the Speaker
Wenlong Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks at Arizona State University (ASU). He received his M.S. in mechanical engineering, M.A. in statistics, and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, all from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined ASU faculty in 2015 and is the founding director of the ASU Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (RISE Lab). His research interests lie in the development of soft and compliant robots as well as dynamics-aware planning and control algorithms for future robots to interact safely and efficiently with humans and complex environments. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, NSF CISE Research Initiation Award, Bisgrove Early-Career Faculty Award from Science Foundation Arizona, and several best paper awards.
Host: Professor Naira Hovakimyan
