William John Stewart

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Perching in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offers the possibility of extending the range of aerial robots beyond the limits of their batteries. It has been a topic of intense study for multirotor UAVs. Perching in winged UAVs is harder because a kinetic e ...

Modern UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) suffer from restrictions in flight range and time due to battery capacity limitations. One way to overcome these limitations is to harvest energy from overhead power lines. A growing body of scientific literature has ...

The effects of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market are matters of great social concern. Economists and technology experts are debating at what rate, and to what extent, technology could be used to replace humans in occupations, and ...

Animal locomotion results from a combination of power modulation and cyclic appendage trajectories, but combining these two properties in small-sized robots is difficult. Here, we introduce and characterize a new elastic actuation system based on an invert ...

Multimodal unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are rarely capable of more than two modalities, i.e., flying and walking or flying and perching. However, being able to fly, perch, and walk could further improve their usefulness by expanding their operating enve ...

Flying robots are becoming increasingly widespread, not only as remote‐vision agents but also as tools capable of physically interacting with our world. As robots fly closer to obstacles, the likelihood of collision rises. While collision resilience soluti ...

Delivery drones used by logistics companies today are equipped with unshielded propellers, which represent a major hurdle for in-hand parcel delivery. The exposed propeller blades are hazardous to unsuspecting bystanders, pets, and untrained users. One sol ...

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) are being used in a wide range of applications such as surveillance, reconnaissance, inspection, and search and rescue. However, due to their size and mission profiles, they are prone to tipping over, jeopardizing their operati ...

Intense winds are a challenge for vertical take-off and landing drones with wings. In particular, in the hovering regime, wings are sensitive to wind currents that can be detrimental to their operational and energetic performances. Tail-sitters are particu ...

The present invention concerns a method of manoeuvring a vertical take-off and landing, unmanned aerial drone (100) comprising at least an aerodynamic surface (101), wherein, during a flight of the drone, the aerodynamic surface generates lift and/or drag ...

Winged drones that fly in close proximity to obstacles or that are capable of aerial and terrestrial locomotion can benefit from protective systems that prevent damage to delicate aerial structures. Existing protective solutions focus on multi-copter drone ...

Untethering can allow soft modular robots to move from the laboratory test bench into realistic environments and commercial use. However, today’s state of the art soft modular robots remain electrically connected to external power sources and controllers. ...

The conventional approach to parcel placement in most delivery drone designs today is to place the parcel centrally beneath the drone's rotor plane. However, if the parcel is too large, this will result in an obstruction of the propeller slipstream, incurr ...

There is a growing interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) grasping, perching, and interacting with their surroundings by means of claws, arms, hooks, and other appendages. While multirotor vehicles can slowly lower onto a target object and grasp it, w ...

William John Stewart

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Passive Perching with Energy Storage for Winged Aerial Robots

A Lightweight Device for Energy Harvesting from Power Lines with a Fixed-Wing UAV

How to compete with robots by assessing job automation risks and resilient alternatives

Elastic-Actuation Mechanism for Repetitive Hopping Based on Power Modulation and Cyclic Trajectory Generation

Avian-Inspired Claws Enable Robot Perching or Walking

Collision‐Resilient Winged Drones Enabled by Tensegrity Structures

A Morphing Cargo Drone for Safe Flight in Proximity of Humans

Insect Inspired Self-Righting for Fixed-Wing Drones

Wind Defiant Morphing Drones

Method for wind harvesting and wind rejection in flying drones

Robotic Elytra: Insect-Inspired Protective Wings for Resilient and Multi-Modal Drones

Unleashing Soft Modular Robots by means of a Bio-inspired Connection Strategy

Downside Up:Rethinking Parcel Position for Aerial Delivery

How to Swoop and Grasp Like a Bird With a Passive Claw for a High-Speed Grasping