Virtual insect flight simulator (VIFS): a software testbed for insect flight

Author

Schenato, L. ; Deng, X. ; Wu, W.C. ; Sastry, S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

Volume

4

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

3885

Abstract

Presents the design of the software simulator, VIFS, for insect flight. In particular, it is intended to estimate flight control algorithms and performance for a micromechanical flying insect (MFI), a 10-25 mm (wingtip-to-wingtip) device eventually capable of sustained autonomous flight. The VIFS is an end-to-end tool composed of several modular blocks which model actuator dynamics, wing aerodynamics, body motion, visual and inertial sensors, environment perception, and control algorithms. A 3D virtual environment simulation is also developed as a visualization tool. We present the current state of art of its implementation and preliminary results.

Keywords

aerodynamics; aerospace control; aerospace robotics; aerospace simulation; image sequences; microrobots; optical sensors; software engineering; 3D virtual environment simulation; actuator dynamics; body motion; environment perception; flight control algorithms; inertial sensors; micromechanical flying insect; software testbed; sustained autonomous flight; virtual insect flight simulator; visual sensors; visualization tool; wing aerodynamics; Actuators; Aerodynamics; Aerospace control; Aerospace simulation; Insects; Micromechanical devices; Motion control; Software design; Software testing; Virtual environment;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 2001. Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on

ISSN

1050-4729

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6576-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.2001.933223

Filename

933223