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About

Wessel Straatman is a robotics researcher whose work bridges disaster response and bio-inspired engineering. He is best known for his contributions to the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) and the development of the Robird, a robotic bird of prey. Straatman’s major contributions include co-authoring the highly cited "Team IHMC's Lessons Learned from the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials" (242 citations), which provided critical insights into human-robot interaction and locomotion for disaster response robots. This work helped shape the future of field robotics by documenting real-world challenges and solutions from one of the most ambitious robotics competitions ever held. In parallel, Straatman pioneered the Robird project, a flapping-wing aerial robot designed for bird control at airports. His paper "Robird: A Robotic Bird of Prey" (96 citations) introduced a novel approach to mitigating bird strikes—a billion-dollar aviation safety problem—using biomimicry. He also developed an autopilot for the peregrine falcon Robird, addressing the difficulty of manually piloting flapping-wing drones. Straatman’s work exemplifies how robotics can solve practical, high-impact problems, from saving lives in disasters to protecting aircraft and wildlife.