Design Summary_Analysis Draft #1
In the article "The RoboBee Flies Solo: Cutting the Power Cord for the First Untethered Flight", Burrows (2019) addressed researchers’ breakthroughs to a decade-long process of making a self-sustaining miniature flying autonomous vehicle.
According to the article, the researchers faced difficulty in finding the perfect balance between mass and power at such a tiny scale, where efficient flight is proven to be much harder to achieve.
Throughout the decade, researchers working on this project made several important and major additions to the design of the vehicle such as including an additional pair of wings and making adjustments to the actuator and transmission ratio and thus enabled them to “put everything we need on-board without using more power, ” as stated in the article by Jafferis.
This particular change in the project led researchers to substitute the vehicle's power cord for on-board solar cells, allowing RoboBee to achieve a self-sustaining function and untethered flight.
Although Burrows provided information on the researchers' breakthrough of achieving self-sustained untethered flight, her article was quite unsatisfactory as it did not provide readers with explanation on how the researchers arrived at their decision for the mentioned design changes. Also her article did not explain the application and usefulness of the vehicle.
One reason why Burrows’ article was unsatisfactory because it did not state the researchers' thought process and design considerations that led to the vehicle’s design changes. In this case it was the addition of another set of wings to facilitate increased lift without additional power consumption.
In contrast, Yang, Chen, Chang, Calderon, & Perez-Arancibia (2019) clearly stated their reasoning behind their design decisions in their article. The researchers’ explained the choice of actuators for flight operation of their robot, similar to Robobee. They opted for twinned unimorph actuators instead of single bimorph actuators, which were used by other miniature flying autonomous robots including the Robobee. The article then explained that even though the unimorph actuators were slightly heavier than the latter, their design was far less complex, simplifying the fabrication process. As an added bonus, the selected actuators’ circuitry were also less complicated.
Unlike Burrows’ article, Yang et al. (2019) clearly provided their explanation and thought process behind their design changes, allowing readers to much better understand the project.
Another reason why Burrows’ article was not satisfactory was because it did not go into detail on the application of the RoboBee project. Her article only briefly touched on the fact that the researchers made advances to combat challenging hurdles leading up to the breakthrough, stating that "these underlying technologies are finding applications in other areas".
However, an article by Wood, Nagpal, and Wei (2013) on a previous iteration of the RoboBee project, clearly described a possible application of the invention. It first mentioned a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) where honey bee colonies cease to function as a hive. Then the article explains that agriculture in the United States (U.S.) might be negatively impacted by this phenomenon, as honey bees were integral to most commercial pollination in the U.S. It then goes on to state that with RoboBees, “flying bee-size robots” would essentially replace the honey bees in carrying out pollination, but without the risk of CCD, unlike their living counterpart.
This gives readers an insight into the application of the project, unlike Burrows’ article, as some might not be too familiar or caught up with the project.
In conclusion, while Burrows’ article did do a great job of describing the milestone that the researchers at Harvard achieved for their miniature flying autonomous vehicle, it was unsatisfactory as it had left out details that might leave readers questioning certain aspects of the literature, especially those who may not be very familiar with the project.
References:
Burrows, L. (2019, June 26). The Robobee Flies Solo: Cutting the power cord for the first untethered flight. Retrieved from https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2019/06/robobee-flies-solo
Yang, X., Chen, Y., Chang, L., Calderon, A.A., Perez-Arancibia, N.O. (July 2019) Bee+: A 95-mg Four-Winged Insect-Scale Flying Robot Driven by Twinned Unimorph Actuators. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.02253.pdf
Wood, R., Nagpal, R., & Wei, G. (March 2013) Flight of the Robobees. Retrieved from https://ssr.seas.harvard.edu/files/ssr/files/sciam2013-robobee.pdf
According to the article, the researchers faced difficulty in finding the perfect balance between mass and power at such a tiny scale, where efficient flight is proven to be much harder to achieve.
Throughout the decade, researchers working on this project made several important and major additions to the design of the vehicle such as including an additional pair of wings and making adjustments to the actuator and transmission ratio and thus enabled them to “put everything we need on-board without using more power, ” as stated in the article by Jafferis.
This particular change in the project led researchers to substitute the vehicle's power cord for on-board solar cells, allowing RoboBee to achieve a self-sustaining function and untethered flight.
Although Burrows provided information on the researchers' breakthrough of achieving self-sustained untethered flight, her article was quite unsatisfactory as it did not provide readers with explanation on how the researchers arrived at their decision for the mentioned design changes. Also her article did not explain the application and usefulness of the vehicle.
One reason why Burrows’ article was unsatisfactory because it did not state the researchers' thought process and design considerations that led to the vehicle’s design changes. In this case it was the addition of another set of wings to facilitate increased lift without additional power consumption.
In contrast, Yang, Chen, Chang, Calderon, & Perez-Arancibia (2019) clearly stated their reasoning behind their design decisions in their article. The researchers’ explained the choice of actuators for flight operation of their robot, similar to Robobee. They opted for twinned unimorph actuators instead of single bimorph actuators, which were used by other miniature flying autonomous robots including the Robobee. The article then explained that even though the unimorph actuators were slightly heavier than the latter, their design was far less complex, simplifying the fabrication process. As an added bonus, the selected actuators’ circuitry were also less complicated.
Unlike Burrows’ article, Yang et al. (2019) clearly provided their explanation and thought process behind their design changes, allowing readers to much better understand the project.
Another reason why Burrows’ article was not satisfactory was because it did not go into detail on the application of the RoboBee project. Her article only briefly touched on the fact that the researchers made advances to combat challenging hurdles leading up to the breakthrough, stating that "these underlying technologies are finding applications in other areas".
However, an article by Wood, Nagpal, and Wei (2013) on a previous iteration of the RoboBee project, clearly described a possible application of the invention. It first mentioned a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) where honey bee colonies cease to function as a hive. Then the article explains that agriculture in the United States (U.S.) might be negatively impacted by this phenomenon, as honey bees were integral to most commercial pollination in the U.S. It then goes on to state that with RoboBees, “flying bee-size robots” would essentially replace the honey bees in carrying out pollination, but without the risk of CCD, unlike their living counterpart.
This gives readers an insight into the application of the project, unlike Burrows’ article, as some might not be too familiar or caught up with the project.
In conclusion, while Burrows’ article did do a great job of describing the milestone that the researchers at Harvard achieved for their miniature flying autonomous vehicle, it was unsatisfactory as it had left out details that might leave readers questioning certain aspects of the literature, especially those who may not be very familiar with the project.
References:
Burrows, L. (2019, June 26). The Robobee Flies Solo: Cutting the power cord for the first untethered flight. Retrieved from https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2019/06/robobee-flies-solo
Yang, X., Chen, Y., Chang, L., Calderon, A.A., Perez-Arancibia, N.O. (July 2019) Bee+: A 95-mg Four-Winged Insect-Scale Flying Robot Driven by Twinned Unimorph Actuators. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.02253.pdf
Wood, R., Nagpal, R., & Wei, G. (March 2013) Flight of the Robobees. Retrieved from https://ssr.seas.harvard.edu/files/ssr/files/sciam2013-robobee.pdf
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