Fight or Flight: From Aerial Agility to Winning Aerial Combat in Hummingirds
Abstract
Hummingbirds are the epitome of extreme aerial agility and nature s fierce fighters. They put their blazingly fast aerial acrobatics into full display when they fight to defend their territories - they battle in midair by aggressively chasing, kicking, grabbing, and stabbing each other with needle- like bills and sharp claws as weapons. They also have high situational awareness with rapid perception and mutual assessment, based on which they make split-second decisions to escalate or deescalate a combat. So what can we learn from hummingbird combat for enhancing the capabilities of small drones potentially used in warfare? With the increasing use of small, personal drones on the battlefield, it is not hard to imagine that in the not-so-distant future, similar drones from opposing sides will encounter during a mission and engage potential drone combat. Therefore, studying the agility and intelligence involved in hummingbird aerial combat can potentially inform and inspire combat functions and strategies for small aerial systems. In particular, compared with other birds or flying insects, hummingbirds can adopt a wider range of combat strategies and exhibit a rich repertoire of combat behaviors since they have larger flight envelope and higher agility. Hummingbird combat is also characterized by intense physical interactions, which can potentially inspire a variety of drone functions that involve physical contact or self-inflicted perturbations (e.g., shooting a projectile, pressing a button, catching a moving object, etc.).This proposed basic research will systematically investigate how hummingbirds combine agility and intelligence to gain aerial dominance in combat, and how this knowledge can inform and inspire the design, control and autonomy of small drones potentially engaging in aerial combat that is relevant tohomeland security and military operations. Specifically, this proposed research has the following tasks. First, we will perform experiments on competitive interactions between male hummingbirds in both field and laboratory settings. We will leverage the recent advances in machine vision and deep learning to generate a rich set of three-dimensional body and wing kinematics data of hummingbird aerial combat. Second, we will dissect the composition of aerial agility, including primitives of body motion, wing motion and wing motor control. Using inverse dynamics, data-driven modeling, and dimensionality-reduction analytics, we will establish the entire array of Body Motion Primitives (BMP) and Wing Motor Primitives (WMrP) that compose the fighting maneuvers. We will then use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and simulation of hummingbird flight to analyze the underlying aerodynamics, musculoskeletal wing actuation, and energetic cost. Third, we will seek to understand the intelligence used in hummingbird combat by reverse engineering the underlying perception, decision making, and combat strategies. We will first model the decision-making process that switch and combine Maneuvering Modules (MMs) sequentially to form various Fighting Maneuvering Sequences (FMSs). We will model the decision making basedon the assessment and escalation of combat, which is likely dependent on prior knowledge, visual perception, and mechanical cost ofa maneuver. We will also reverse engineer hummingbird s eye view in virtual reality based on the measured kinematics, which will then be used to inform and model the decision making and test for stages of escalation during combat. In addition, this project will also enable a multidisciplinary team to provide training opportunities for a diverse group of students and carry out several outreachand STEM education activities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 11, 2024
- Source ID
- N000142412044
Entities
People
- Bo Cheng
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Pennsylvania State University
- United States Navy