Presented By: Aerospace Engineering
[Aero Homecoming] Chair's Distinguished Lecture: Birds, Drones, and Smart Structures
Daniel J. Inman, Ph.D.
Harm Buning Collegiate Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Michigan
Gliding birds perform some interesting non-aircraft like shapes with their wings and tails. Birds also respond to gusts in unique ways. These observations have motivated the study of shape changing, or morphing aircraft. Several unique uses of piezoceramic composites and shape memory alloys to achieve advantageous airfoil shapes are presented inspired by the incredible performance avian species achieve. The aerodynamics and control that birds use in gliding result in efficiencies in performance not yet realized by fixed wing aircraft. With the advent of smart, multifunctional composites, it is possible to implement motions inspired by avian gliding in small, unmanned air vehicles (UAV). Initially motivated by the casual observation of flight control motions made by birds, morphing research has proceeded with only limited understanding of how and why birds use their aerodynamic surfaces for flight control and gust alleviation. A summary of relevant previous results from two fields: avian biology and morphing aircraft, is presented followed by some current results on real time computing for learning control to attempt to emulate a bird’s ability to fly-by-feel.
About the speaker...
Daniel J. Inman received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is the Harm Buning Collegiate Professor of former Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, over 400 journal papers and 650 proceedings papers, given 65 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 67 Ph.D. students and supervised more than 75 MS degrees. He works in the area of applying smart structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing aircraft. He is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, IIAV, SEM and AAM.
Harm Buning Collegiate Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Michigan
Gliding birds perform some interesting non-aircraft like shapes with their wings and tails. Birds also respond to gusts in unique ways. These observations have motivated the study of shape changing, or morphing aircraft. Several unique uses of piezoceramic composites and shape memory alloys to achieve advantageous airfoil shapes are presented inspired by the incredible performance avian species achieve. The aerodynamics and control that birds use in gliding result in efficiencies in performance not yet realized by fixed wing aircraft. With the advent of smart, multifunctional composites, it is possible to implement motions inspired by avian gliding in small, unmanned air vehicles (UAV). Initially motivated by the casual observation of flight control motions made by birds, morphing research has proceeded with only limited understanding of how and why birds use their aerodynamic surfaces for flight control and gust alleviation. A summary of relevant previous results from two fields: avian biology and morphing aircraft, is presented followed by some current results on real time computing for learning control to attempt to emulate a bird’s ability to fly-by-feel.
About the speaker...
Daniel J. Inman received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Mechanical Engineering in 1980 and is the Harm Buning Collegiate Professor of former Chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, Since 1980, he has published eight books (on vibration, energy harvesting, control, statics, and dynamics), eight software manuals, 20 book chapters, over 400 journal papers and 650 proceedings papers, given 65 keynote or plenary lectures, graduated 67 Ph.D. students and supervised more than 75 MS degrees. He works in the area of applying smart structures to solve aerospace engineering problems including energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing aircraft. He is a Fellow of AIAA, ASME, IIAV, SEM and AAM.
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Livestream Information
ZoomOctober 22, 2020 (Thursday) 4:00pm
Meeting ID: 99613763761
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