Research from NIFTI PI Sawyer Fuller’s lab was featured on Youtube by the science and discovery video creator Seeker. The video focuses on the Fuller lab’s work on autonomous insect-sized robots which can detect obstacles and targets and self-navigate in the air and in the water.
The team, working from the the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory, or AIR lab at the UW, has been designing and building a new type of autonomous robots modeled after insects. This focus on bio-mimicry includes pulling inspiration from natural solutions. Insects can serve as natural models for investigations such as determining optimum wing shape for aerodynamics, or looking to mimic the mechanical movement of muscles.
The Fuller lab has previously been featured when Graduate Fellow Melanie Anderson won the 2018 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, in 2019 during the creation of the creation of the RoboFly, and a Science article in 2016.