UD Home | UDaily | UDaily-Alumni | UDaily-Parents


HIGHLIGHTS
UD called 'epicenter' of 2008 presidential race

Refreshed look for 'UDaily'

Fire safety training held for Residence Life staff

New Enrollment Services Building open for business

UD Outdoor Pool encourages kids to do summer reading

UD in the News

UD alumnus Biden selected as vice presidential candidate

Top Obama and McCain strategists are UD alums

Campanella named alumni relations director

Alum trains elephants at Busch Gardens

Police investigate robbery of student

UD delegation promotes basketball in India

Students showcase summer service-learning projects

First UD McNair Ph.D. delivers keynote address

Research symposium spotlights undergraduates

Steiner named associate provost for interdisciplinary research initiatives

More news on UDaily

Subscribe to UDaily's email services


UDaily is produced by the Office of Public Relations
The Academy Building
105 East Main St.
Newark, DE 19716-2701
(302) 831-2791

UD's Deng presented NSF Career Award

Besides researching the flight of insects, Xinyan Deng, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UD, is working on building micro underwater vehicles (MUVs) with oscillating fins mimicking a boxfish. Boxfish are known for their ability to swim smoothly through turbulent waters of coral reefs and exhibit excellent maneuverability.
10:24 a.m., March 7, 2006--The University of Delaware's Xinyan Deng, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering who is conducting innovative research on the flight of insects and its potential use in microrobotic flying machines, has been presented the National Science Foundation's prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award.

The five-year, $455,000 award will support Deng's work in the development of microaerial vehicles capable of stable and maneuverable flight mimicking real insects, while carrying biomimetic sensors.

The award is one of the National Science Foundation's highest honors for young faculty members, and it recognizes and supports the early career activities of those teachers and scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the future.

Deng is one of four young UD faculty members to have received the award this year, joining Joseph Fox and Neal Zondlo, both assistant professors of chemistry and biochemistry, and Balaji Panchapakesan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“I was very surprised and happy to receive the NSF Career Award,” Deng said. “This is a great honor and recognition for me at this stage of my career. The study of microrobotic insects is a leading edge, multidisciplinary research field with many interesting topics on which I have been working on since my Ph.D. study at the University of California Berkeley. I have continued and extended my research in this field to include more unexplored topics after coming to UD and starting my own microrobotics lab. The research is very interesting, and we are seeing exciting and fruitful results.”

The research being supported by NSF encompasses novel attempts in several research topics on flapping flight in insects. For example, one of the goals of the research is to study the flight attributes observed in insects and to investigate the underlying principles that result in flight stability and also lead to differences in performance in order to develop a methodology and guidelines for designing flapping-wing microaerial vehicles.

Beside mathematical modeling and theoretical studies, Deng hopes to design and fabricate workable flapping-wing microaerial vehicles, or miniature flying robots, that are capable of stable and maneuverable flight with biomimetic sensors. Biomimetics is the application of natural systems in modern technology, which has attracted a growing interest in the robotics research community.

The goal is to create centimeter-scale microrobots, in this case micromechanical flying insects (MFIs) that are lightweight and very small, to conduct surveillance and search and rescue operations, often in areas that are inaccessible or hazardous to humans. A group of MFIs can be deployed to form in-air sensor networks.

“Insects can hover, which is a very important quality in indoor applications such as surveillance and search and rescue,” Deng said. “Insect flight is fundamentally different from other types of flight in nature.”

To better understand how insects fly and hover, she is studying the wing kinematics, body dynamics, flight control systems and aerodynamics of flies and bees. Both have wings that can flap, rotate and deviate, essentially making a figure eight pattern as they move through the air.

“A fly can make a 90 degree turn in 50 milliseconds,” Deng said. “This is a result of their highly maneuverable wings, enhanced aerodynamics, sophisticated neural motor control systems and advanced sensory systems, all of which provide great lessons to build man-made flying machines at small size.”

Deng said the theories developed from this research “will provide new understanding of the inherent flight stability and maneuverability present in insects and hopefully will lead to developing a new theory describing the underlying principles of the different flight phenomena observed in nature.”

She is working with her students to develop functioning prototypes of mechanical flies and dragonflies for experimental studies. She also is working to develop models, including a virtual insect flight simulator found on her web site [www.me.udel.edu/deng/], and to translate what is learned from those models to the design of actual machines.

“There are challenges as well as interesting discoveries,” Deng said. “To others, sometimes this type of work sounds like science fiction. Biology and engineering are working hand in hand as multidisciplinary studies become increasingly important in current research fields.”

In addition to her mechanical flying insect project, Deng also is studying how to build a microrobotic boxfish through research sponsored by the University of Delaware Research Fund (UDRF). The goal is to build a one-centimeter square boxfish robot, and Deng's team has built a proof-of-concept prototype.

Deng said a robot modeled on a boxfish is of interest because it could remain steady even in turbulent waters. Such a micro-underwater vehicle could be used to conduct underwater exploration, marine microorganism sensing, water pollution detection and shipwreck exploration.

Educational activities supported by the NSF grant include the incorporation of research materials into graduate and undergraduate curricula and the sharing of information with students and teachers in grades kindergarten through 12. Deng also hopes to share her work through the Design & Discovery Summer Leadership Institute, a partnership between UD and the Girls Scouts of the Chesapeake Bay Council.

Another broader impact of the project will be to create an Internet-based flapping flight gait simulator accessible to students and researchers to simulate and visualize realistic flight patterns of different insects and birds, given their morphological data, she said.

Deng received her bachelor's degree in automation from Tianjin University in China and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2004 before joining the faculty at UD. Her work is in the area of control and robotics, biological system modeling and bio-inspired micro robots.

“The Department of Mechanical Engineering is very supportive of junior faculty, and I am really appreciative,” she said.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

  E-mail this article

  Subscribe to UDaily

  Subscribe to crime alert e-mail notification