A new insect-scale robot developed at MIT is reshaping how robotics can be used in challenging environments like disaster ...

The wings are driven as flapping wings by piezoelectric actuators. The problem with such systems is the ground effect that occurs during landings, air turbulence caused by the flapping wings ...

In a novel application of machine learning ... can finely tune their flight through strain sensing in their flapping wings, which is crucial for responsive flight control,” Tanaka concluded.

While Leonardo da Vinci sketched a flapping-wing aircraft in the early 1500s it wouldn’t be for another 400 years until the first powered flight would take place, achieved by Orville and Wilbur ...

And French-born aviation pioneer Octave Chanute made note of da Vinci’s diagrams in his 1894 work Progress in Flying Machines. “Da Vinci was completely focused on flapping-wing, human-powered ...