Topic

Bio-inspired robotics

Engineering that borrows sensing or locomotion strategies from animals, such as whiskers, insect wings or compound eyes.

Current clusters

science1 publisher

A 3.2-gram whisker array guides a palm-sized drone through the dark by touch alone

Researchers built a whisker array light enough for a palm-sized drone to carry and simple enough to run on its own microcontroller, giving the aircraft a way to navigate in places where cameras and rangefinders fail.

Publishers:nature.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption: Insufficient
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence58

product1 publisher

TU Delft fits whisker-based drone navigation into 34 kilobytes of onboard memory

Researchers at TU Delft mounted two artificial whiskers on a micro-drone and filtered out its own propeller wash, giving millimeter-precision depth readings in enclosures where cameras see nothing. The flight tests are published in Nature Communications.

Publishers:interestingengineering.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption10
Hype gap+35
Incentives50
Confidence55