Dragonfly as a model for UAV/MAV flight and communication controls

摘要

The dragonfly adult has been extensively studied as a model insect for the design of robots and more recently MAV (micro-aerial vehicle). In particular, its flight and vision-guided navigation mechanisms have been widely adopted in the design of MAV and robots. The wings of dragonfly have been investigated to develop new generation of nanocomposite MEMS materials. In this article, we are interested in some other behaviors of dragonfly, which can be inspirational for flight and communication control of a fleet (population) of UAV/MAVs. Specifically, the territory behaviors and mating systems of dragonflies are able to automatically control the accesses to limited number of female dragonflies by male dragonflies. We suggest that this kind of mechanisms used by dragonflies may be used for engineering applications such as optimal deployment of UAV/MAV or robots in unpredictable or hostile environments. Similarly, they may be inspirational for solving problems such as the optimal coverage of wireless sensor networks (WSN) or channel time-sharing in wireless communications. Due to the population nature (a population of dragonflies vs. a fleet of UAV/MAV) of the dragonfly-behavior-inspired applications, mathematical modeling tools such as evolutionary game theory and rendezvous search game theory are suggested to transfer biological inspirations to engineering designs.