Robotic insect, navigation, and scientific discovery strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (May 19, 2025)

(1) Birds do it, bees do it…

Fly, of course. But, just importantly, land safely after flying.

Roboticists have studied insects and incorporated key insights into the dynamics of flight in designing ‘robo-bees’. Now, researchers at Harvard University have turned to the crane fly to inspire new designs for landing.*

“For flying insects, the transition from flight to surface locomotion requires effective touchdown maneuvers that allow stable landings on a variety of surfaces. Landing behaviors of insects are diverse, with some using more controlled flight approaches to landing, whereas others dampen collision impacts with parts of their bodies. The landing approaches of real insects inspired our current work, where we present a combined mechanical and control approach to achieving safe and accurate landings for flapping-wing microaerial vehicles. For the mechanical approach to landing, we took inspiration from the legs of the crane fly, designing lossy compliant legs that maximize energy dissipation during surface collisions.”**

* Ouellette, J., RoboBee sticks the landing, ArsTechnica (April 16 2025); https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/robobee-sticks-the-landing/

** Nak-seung P. Hyun et al., Sticking the landing: Insect-inspired strategies for safely landing flapping-wing aerial microrobots.Sci. Robot.10,eadq3059(2025). DOI:10.1126/scirobotics.adq3059