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NIFTI researchers have designed and built the Smellicopter, a bio-hybrid odor-guided autonomous palm-sized air vehicle, led by University of Washington doctoral student Melanie Anderson. Melanie’s work was recently featured in an article and video by UW News, as well as a number of other media outlets. Watch the video below:

From the UW News article: “One huge advantage of drones is that these little robots can go places where people can’t, including areas that might be too dangerous, such as unstable structures after a natural disaster or a region with unexploded devices. Researchers are interested in developing devices that can navigate these situations by sniffing out chemicals in the air to locate disaster survivors, gas leaks, explosives and more. But most sensors created by people are not sensitive or fast enough to be able to find and process specific smells while flying through the patchy odor plumes these sources create. Now a team led by the University of Washington has developed [the] Smellicopter: an autonomous drone that uses a live antenna from a moth to navigate toward smells. [The] Smellicopter can also sense and avoid obstacles as it travels through the air.”

Lead researcher Melanie Anderson is a doctoral student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. Doctoral student Joseph Sullivan and NIFTI faculty Tom Daniel (UW Biology), Sawyer Fuller (UW Mechanical Engineering), and Timmer Horiuchi (University of Maryland Electrical and Computer Engineering) are also involved in the Smellicopter project.

The team of NIFTI researchers behind the Smellicopter recently published a paper at Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. Melanie Anderson previously won a 2018 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG).

The Smellicopter has been covered in a variety of media outlets:

• Wired, “This Drone Sniffs Out Odors With a Real Moth Antenna”
• UW News, “The Smellicopter is an obstacle-avoiding drone that uses a live moth antenna to seek out smells”
• Tech Crunch, “This tiny drone uses an actual moth antenna to sniff out target chemicals”
• The Times, “‘Smellicopter’ drone harnesses power of moths to scan disaster zones”
• Digital Trends, “Smellicopter is an autonomous, scent-chasing drone made with real moth antennas”
• Geekwire, “‘Smellicopter’ takes flight at UW with moth antenna on drone to fly toward smells and avoid obstacles”
• The Engineer, “Smellicopter uses moth antenna to detect volatile chemicals”
• IFL Science, “Autonomous “Smellicopter” Drone Can Seek Out Scents With A Live Moth Antennae”
• King 5 Morning News
• KOMO Radio
• Future Human, “The ‘Smellicopter’ Drone Uses Actual Moth Antenna to Sniff Out Smells”
• Engineering and Technology, “‘Smellicopter’ drone sniffs its way around its surroundings”
• Drone Life, “Smellicopter: Scientists Develop Tiny Drone that Uses Moth Antenna to Locate Smells”
• New Atlas, “”Smellicopter” drone uses live moth antenna to sniff out targets”
• Tech Briefs, “Q&A: ‘Smellicopter’ Uses Live Moth Antenna to Seek Out Smells”
• TechLink, “The Smellicopter is a bio-hybrid odor localizing nano drone”
• Tech Times, “Tiny Drone ‘Smellicopter’ Uses Moth Antenna to Smell Targeted Chemicals”
• Tech Xplore, “‘The Smellicopter,’ an obstacle-avoiding drone that uses a live moth antenna to seek out smells”
• ScienceDaily, “Smellicopter: An obstacle-avoiding drone that uses a live moth antenna to seek out smells”
• Tom’s Guide, “Smellicopter : un drone équipé d’antennes de papillon de nuit pour détecter les odeurs”

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.

Research by NIFTI graduate student Yogesh Chukewad‘s, in NIFTI PI Sawyer Fuller’s lab, was featured in a Wired article. Yogesh works on designing and refining centimeter-scale aerial robots and has been recently working on the movement capabilities of tiny robots. This Wired article was published alongside a manuscript titled “A laser-microfabricated electrohydrodynamic thruster for centimeter-scale aerial robots” on arXiv.

As part of the optimization of small robots, researchers are looking to develop new ways to power their propulsion systems. A newer way that is still in development is ion propulsion, which can provide tiny pushes based on solar power. Atmospheric ion propulsion involves air molecules being bombarded with electrons, causing charged ions to move towards a negatively charged metal comb. As the charged ions move towards the comb, they collide with other molecules, which provides a thrust upwards. This allows for a small scale propulsion system, with the only power needed to produce the ions.

Currently the resulting robot produces between collaborating Fuller and Novosselov labs, has four ion thrusters that are controllable separately, and a tethered power line for the entire robot. An innovation allowing for quick and more efficient development has been laser cutting the electrode and collector in a few minutes. This allows for researchers to test different shapes of electrodes and different materials.

Yogesh has also recently been recognized for helping design the first wireless fly sized drone.

NIFTI PI Sarah Bergbrieter, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, was named to InStyle’s” 50 bad-ass women” list” (see No. 17 in the list). This list spotlights women from various fields (science, social justice, entertainment, and others) who have made inspiring contributions. InStyle named Dr. Bergbrieter alongside other successful women including Rihanna, Marie Kondo, Alex Morgan, Greta Thunberg, and Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt.

Dr. Bergbrieter’s work includes researching micro-robotics. Micro-robots work in many different fields, all allowing for impact where humans have trouble going. In medical fields, micro-robots can conduct microsurgery, where they do tiny tasks, such as repair blood vessels and nerves. These robots, at sub-millimeter sizes, can also help prevent catastrophic failures by inspecting places that are inaccessible for humans. Their size allows for inspectors to investigate under bridges, within pipes, and inside jet engines, finding faults before failures. Researchers are also investigating how these robots can aid in search-and-rescue, accessing tight spaces and dangerous conditions.

Recently Dr. Bergbrieter is included in a multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) award awarded to Bing Brunton.

NIFTI PI Jeff Riffell recently published a paper in Current Biology: “Visual-Olfactory Integration in the Human Disease Vector Mosquito Aedes aegypti“. The paper focuses on mosquito’s integration of various sensory cues to find and track their hosts.

As mosquitoes buzz around searching for their next target, they receive a multitude of signals from the environment. These signals include scents, sights, and environmental heats, which the mosquito must processes in order to locate the most viable target. The Riffell lab worked to determine the interaction between two of the previously unconnected senses, sight and smell.

To track the wing movements during flight, researchers placed mosquitoes in an enclosed space with an optical sensor. Researchers then mimicked human breath and movement with triggered puffs of CO2 infused air and a moving bar. The mosquitoes moved to both the air and the motion, but more dramatically to the motion after receiving a CO2 puff. This experiment was repeated with mosquitoes whose central nervous system cells glowed when firing. Neural data showed both the puff of CO2 and the motion triggered the cells. Stimulus order changed the scale of the reaction, as only bar motion after the CO2 puff caused an increase in cell firing. As Dr. Riffell states, “Smell triggers vision, but vision does not trigger the sense of smell.”

Dr. Riffell hopes scientists can gain a better understanding of how mosquitos feed, and develop new methods of bite prevention. Identifying how mosquitoes track their hosts may lead to the ideal prevention strategy.

Multiple news organizations have featured the research, including Everyday Health, the Seattle Times, and the UW news.

Steve Brunton, a NIFTI PI, received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The United States Government bestows the PECASE as the highest honor to “scientists and engineers show exceptional promise for leadership”. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy receives and reviews recommendations from governmental agencies who support the scientist’s work. Nine agencies have the ability to offer recommendations, including the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.

Dr. Brunton is a mechanical engineer whose research focuses on data-driven modeling and control of complex systems, such as studying how turbulent fluids behave. Brunton was nominated for his work on using machine learning to develop efficient models that accurately describe the complexities of fluid mechanics. These models will then be used in part for designing better aircraft and more efficient energy systems.

Steve Brunton has received other awards, including an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award alongside two College of Engineering awards – one in 2018 and one in 2017. He is also part of a recently awarded MURI grant from AFOSR.

In this years’ PECASE awards, the University of Washington has six faculty members who were honored.

UWIN graduate fellow Thomas Mohren and UWIN faculty Bing Brunton, Steve Brunton, and Tom Daniel published a paper in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) on how flying insects can detect changes in their flight patterns using only a few complex sensors. In order to navigate quickly in complex situations, insects require rapid feedback from the multitude of sensors found on their wings, antennae, and other body parts. The paper, titled “Neural-inspired sensors enable sparse, efficient classification of spatiotemporal data,” describes how insects use both the location of the sensors and the temporal history of the wing motions to sense body rotations.

The researchers use computer models to investigate how insect sensors help detect disturbances. They found a few vital pieces in the insects intake and processing mechanisms. The temporal filter, which modifies environmental inputs with relation to the history of the wings, alongside a non-linear transformation of the received signal at every sensor was crucial for the detection of rotations. These two input modifications, as well as the precise layout of sensors across the wing made it so only a few sensors were required for this detection. The group of researchers believe the principle of neural encoding and sparse placement of sensors hold promise for man-made system. they are now working to implement biologically inspired sensors into robotic platforms.

Bing Brunton previously received a MURI grant for a proposal including Steve Brunton, an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award as well as a University of Washington Innovation award. Steve Brunton has received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award alongside two College of Engineering awards – one in 2018 and one in 2017.

Bing Brunton, a Washington Research Foundation Innovation Assistant Professor and NIFTI faculty member in Neuroengineering, was featured in a recent College of Arts and Sciences newsletter. The article, titled “What Insects can Teach us about Data,” was published in March of 2019.

Brunton researches the ability of flying insects to make tiny but critical adjustments with small amounts of data. She is specifically working to develop a sparse sensor algorithm to mimic sensors on the wings of a hawk moth. These tiny mechanoreceptor neurons on the moth wings allow the moth to track environmental impacts such as wind and adjust the wings accordingly. By understanding how the these neurons are able to take in data, process it, and produce micro-adjustments in real time, Brunton hopes to determine how to mimic this process artificially.

Dr. Bing Brunton has been previously featured in a College of Arts and Sciences article in September of 2016 about her work to analyze large sets of neural data. She has also been recently awarded a highly competitive multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) award from the Department of Defense.

NIFTI faculty member Dr. Bing Brunton has been awarded a 2019 multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research! The MURI program supports teams of investigators from different fields to facilitate the growth of newly emerging technologies. Dr. Brunton’s awarded project focuses on sparse sensing and control for agile flight, and combines the efforts of researchers from the University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These researchers include NIFTI faculty members, Tom Daniel, Steve Brunton, and Nathan Kutz, as well as Sarah Bergbreiter from Carnegie Mellon, and Jonathan How from MIT.

The focus of this research is on the ability of flying animals to acquire information about the environment and make tiny adjustments with small amounts of data. The researchers look to mimic this ability in algorithms and robotics. Many flying animals have strict constraints on size, weight, and computing power, but can still make precise adjustments with large amounts of environmental data. Brunton is looking to use inspiration from flying animals to work on the flying ability in tiny robots by reducing the amount of data imputed through use of specialized hardware alongside sparse neuronal computations. By investigating the flight constraints and the neural response, the project strives to have broad impacts in designing efficient sensor networks, performing adaptive control of complex systems, and achieving agile flight sensing and control.

Bing Brunton has received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award as well as an University of Washington Innovation award. Steve Brunton has received an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator award alongside two college of engineering awards – one in 2018 and one in 2017. Sarah Bergbreiter has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Award in 2013  for her research on engineering robotic systems down to sub-millimeter size scales. This award was also written up in UW Biology’s newsletter.

NIFTI graduate student Melanie Anderson has been awarded a 2018 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG).  Melanie is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington in the lab of Sawyer Fuller.  The NDSEG award recognizes “individuals who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering” with an emphasis in “science and engineering disciplines of military importance.”

Melanie works on developing insect sized robots in the Fuller Lab with a goal to “create tiny robots capable of sensing and performing in the world without a human operator” while focusing on odor-based aerial localization. In May of 2018, the Fuller lab succeeded in creating the world’s lightest flying robot and currently working on refining the miniature robots while refining their olfactory sensors for uses such as detecting methane leaks.