Bat wings are fundamentally different from bird wings. The underlying structure of a bat’s wing is made up of “a metamorphic musculoskeletal system that has more than 40 degrees of freedom” and bones that actively deform during every wing beat. The wing surface itself is an “anisotropic wing membrane skin with adjustable stiffness.” The researchers cut down the number of DoFs to give (the shoulder movement, elbow movement, wrist bending, and side-to-side movement of the legs and tail) which still allows the robot to replicate over 57% of bat flight kinematics. The wing itself is made of a flexible silicone membrane which is just 56 micrometers thick. Eventually, B2 (or bat robots like it) could be used in situations where flight in close proximity to obstacles is necessary since wings are much more forgiving to collisions than rotors are. The researchers are specifically interested in construction site inspection, although they also talked about such robotic research project staples as disaster relief and surveillance.
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