“When life knocks you down, you’ve got to get back up.”
Ladybugs stand by this quote, and quite literally. When knocked down and stuck on their backs, ladybugs are capable of self-righting themselves by utilizing their strong outer wings, known as elytra, and by thrusting their legs or hind wings in order to reorient themselves.
These little creatures have existed for a very long time and Charalampos Vourtsis—a doctoral assistant at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland—notes that “Over that time, they have developed several survival mechanisms that we found to be a source of inspiration for applications in modern robotics.”
Inspired by this, researchers have developed self-righting drones, equipped with artificial elytra for the same purpose. This allows the drones to stabilize and reorient themselves when caught in awkward positions and even improves their aerodynamic capabilities during flight, as tests and experiments by researchers have shown.
For example, long elytra, which they found were the most effective, were tested by the team on different inclines of 10°, 20°, and 30°. The drones were successful in self-righting themselves in all scenarios except for the steepest incline. The drones were also able to reorient themselves on several different terrains, namely: pavement, coarse sand, rocks, shells, and wood chips. While the drones were unable to do so in fine sand and grass, the researchers believe that further optimization may help the drones to accomplish this. A non-negligible lift offsetting the weight of the drone was also noted by the team, regarding it as a bonus.
Image: EPFL-LIS
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