=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 461 ===
Title: LDO 461 - Taxidermy Flying Biomimicry With Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian
Recorded: 2024-06-27
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Koel "Koala" Anderson
Guest(s): Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian
Total audience: 805
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VR9X0mwSes); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1858370901-letsdroneout-ldo-461-taxidermy-flying-biomimicry-with-dr-mostafa-hassanalian.mp3)
=====================================

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Tonight We have a very special guest Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian he's an
Associate Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of
New Mexico Tech.

youtube; https://www.youtube.com/@mostafahassanalian2195
Insta; https://www.instagram.com/mostafahassanalian/?hl=en

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[0.0] Jack: Hello, and you're listening to Let's Drone Out, a special thank you to our lovely patrons
[6.28] Jack: that help donate so that we can pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things
[11.36] Jack: we say.
[13.0] Jack: Massive thank you to…
[14.4] Jack: Carlos Campos, Art Faulkner, Sam Dahmer.
[19.68] Frank: On with the show.
[20.68] Jack: Hello and welcome, you're listening to Let's Drone Out.
[55.79] Jack: We are joined by our Lord and Master, Andrew S. Frank.
[60.15] Frank: Good evening.
[61.15] Jack: The man behind the most beautiful thumbnails, Carl.
[64.55] Jack: Howdy.
[66.27] Jack: And our special guest, Dr. Mustafa Hazanian.
[72.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Hello everyone.
[74.19] Jack: Hello.
[75.19] Jack: Hello.
[76.19] Jack: Welcome.
[77.19] Jack: Hello.
[78.19] Jack: Thank you.
[79.19] Jack: Thank you for coming on.
[80.19] Jack: We finally came across one of your videos, I think, from Instagram, and it was, on some
[91.11] Jack: levels we kind of, we work with the same electronics, and you know what a servo is,
[99.39] Jack: and you're very into drones, we're into like the small, sort of like racing drones
[104.19] Jack: and flying RC planes and stuff.
[107.39] Jack: And then it was, I think, an interview where you had, I can only imagine, was some sort
[113.79] Jack: of taxidermied eagle, was it an ornithopter?
[117.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Yes.
[118.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Or no way.
[119.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: That was a pidgeon and it was actually a pheasant family, chocker, and the body, and also the
[129.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: wings of the pigeon.
[130.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have actually built multiple examples of this type of drone, which I can talk about
[134.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that later on.
[136.67] Jack: Yes.
[137.67] Jack: And also, I had like, you're like so fascinating, I don't know where to begin, because I had
[144.23] Jack: a quick little look at your resume, there was stuff that I was hoping Tony would be
[150.39] Jack: here for, where you've like, do things for like, mine detection, I think that's your
[157.23] Jack: current project, and you were talking about oil and gas lines, you've even done stuff
[163.23] Jack: with NASA and like the cool little, like, sort of like centipede, sort of.
[171.47] Jack: So I'm guessing your background is like, a little bit of biology, mixed with like, just
[179.35] Jack: like electro engineering, mechanical engineering, like, yeah.
[185.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Yeah, so my background is mechanical engineer, my research is, I have been doing research
[191.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: on drones since 2008.
[194.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And all my career here, and all my education has been in this area, which I try to integrate
[201.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: biomimicry or inspiration from nature into the drone technology, as well as the robotics.
[209.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been working on drones for varieties of application, including in underground mines,
[217.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: underground coal mines, building and developing the first permissible and explosive proof
[223.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drones for the coal mine, which is a big challenge, I can show you here, as well as designing
[230.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drones in size of the dandelion seeds, which they basically can fly through the vein.
[238.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, once we talk about biomimetics and bioinspiration, we have two terminologies
[244.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: here.
[245.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Bioinspiration means that you look at the nature and try to inspire from nature and
[249.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: develop something.
[251.09] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So all the airplanes and submarines or any aquatic systems that we see are bioinspire,
[257.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: because we as a human, we looked at the bird or, for example, a killer of fish and we developed
[263.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: airplanes and on the water systems.
[268.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But biomimicry means that you mimic the nature and you try to replicate the nature.
[273.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So for example, if I develop a flapping wing drone, inspired from a butterfly or a snake-like
[278.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: robot or this dragonfly drone, so this is going to be a biomimicry.
[285.05] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So to just show you the diversity of the drone's configurations, so a couple of years ago in
[292.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: 2017, I published a review paper about drones classification and configuration, which has
[298.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: been cited like 1,300 times in the Google Scholar.
[304.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And it has been a reference of the drone technology for many agencies.
[309.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So once you talk a drone, everybody's thinking about a quadcopter or hexacopter or RC model
[315.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: airplane.
[316.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But actually, drones is going to be more than that.
[319.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have classified drones based on their weight as well as their dimension from the
[326.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: UAV stand for unmanned aerial vehicle, that the largest one that they have been developed
[332.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: by researchers is about 61 meters, about 15,000 kilograms, to the size of the smart DOS or
[340.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: DOS-sized particle, which they are using micro or nanoelectromechanical systems, which they
[346.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: basically can do whatever a drone is doing.
[348.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So in this category, we have UAV, microUAV, three classes of micro drones, including micro,
[355.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: nano, and pico aerial vehicle.
[357.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's the range that comes to my expertise, that we have developed drones that they can
[364.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: be like birds in the size of the birds or hummingbirds or as well as insects.
[369.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But if you want to build drones in size of the insects, there is always complexities
[375.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: in the technologies.
[376.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we don't have any batteries in the order of the milligrams, or we don't have any electric
[380.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: motor in that size.
[382.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's the place that a lot of agencies here in the US, also other countries, they
[386.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: came with this idea that maybe instead of building drones in size of mosquitoes, we
[393.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: can control the live insects and use them as a drone.
[397.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, I just wanted to show you that drones can be more than quadcopters or hexacopters.
[404.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So by today, more than about 20 or 30 different configurations of drones that they are using
[412.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: different flight mechanisms in order to fly.
[415.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the generating aerodynamic forces or lift and truss, it's not just having propellers
[428.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: or a motors.
[429.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: There are another way to generate those aerodynamic forces.
[433.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have published another review papers two years ago, which actually we tried to map
[438.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: a specific application for drones with configurations that they are being developed by researchers.
[447.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, I want to show you a funny application, and the main reason I bring that, I had a
[453.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: students from Imperial College in London, and she reached out to me and asked me to
[459.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: work to be her research advisor.
[461.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And the projects that we defined for her was to combine the fashion industry with drone
[469.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: technology.
[470.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here, the idea was to develop a swarm of the butterfly-inspired drones, which they
[476.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: can follow as celebrating the red carpet and fly around the person for the Metcala event.
[482.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is probably a not useful application of the drone, but it shows that how much a
[488.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drone technology can be advanced and what broad application they can have.
[495.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, this slide, I want to show you that how biomimicry or inspire from nature is going
[503.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to help us to develop this type of drone technology.
[507.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So dandelion seeds, these are seeds that they can fly up to 100 miles or 160 kilometers
[516.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to the wind.
[517.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Wind just take them and they generate a vortex, a ring above them, which allow them to generate
[524.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: lift and stay in the air.
[527.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: You will see a pill bug or a rolly polly.
[529.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: They are amazing insects with a crowing carrot.
[533.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Exactly.
[534.87] Jack: It's the English.
[535.87] Jack: We're like, what?
[536.87] Koel: We call them potato bugs.
[539.67] Koel: We call them potato bugs in Canada.
[541.71] Frank: Oh, no.
[542.71] Frank: The whole kind of worms of what this is called.
[544.91] Frank: Yeah.
[545.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We call it a rolly polly or pill bugs.
[549.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So they have a crowing, curling, and rolling mechanism.
[552.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have a job with fish with the amazing swimming mechanism.
[555.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have this spider, which is called golden wheel spider with jump and roll.
[560.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And it's found in the desert in Numbia, once you're in the presence of predator or in the
[564.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: downhill in order to save energy, the star to roll and jump.
[568.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have a grass.
[569.67] Jack: That is the thing of nightmares.
[573.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Jumping capability and other species are not related to drones, so I will keep talking
[578.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: about them.
[579.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here we have been looking at developing some robots, which they can mimic those spider
[587.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and create this type of locomotion, jumping and rolling capability for lunar and Martian
[593.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: exploration.
[594.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Because if you want to go to the Mars, one of the big challenges is basically the rocky
[599.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: surface of the Mars.
[601.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So all the rovers that are being sent to the Mars, they have cracks in their wheels.
[605.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been trying to develop this type of concepts, a swarm of this rolling jumpings
[611.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that they can help with this NASA's missions or planetary exploration.
[616.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is our grasshopper jumping robot.
[619.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So on moon, we cannot fly any drones because there is a big challenge there.
[626.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: There is no atmosphere there.
[628.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And the other challenge is the dust for terrestrial robots.
[633.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been looking at developing a jumping robot that they are inspired from the grasshoppers,
[640.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: which because of the low gravity on moon and the lack of atmosphere, this would be a very
[647.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: efficient locomotion to perform in the lunar environment.
[653.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is our peelbog robot, as you can see it here.
[657.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is a robot that we have developed based on the peelbog.
[659.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The main reason I'm explaining this, because this type of robot, I'll show you in my future
[664.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: slide, they're going to be carried by drones for planetary exploration.
[668.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I'll talk about that more shortly.
[670.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is a testing.
[673.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is our jellyfish inspired drone.
[677.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is basically helium gas filled components that are mimicking this.
[684.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is a project I have with a company here that we are developing and helping companies
[689.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: with extraterrestrial airships.
[691.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So let's skip that.
[694.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And I want to show you a new technology, a new drone configuration that we have developed
[699.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: based on the dandelion seeds.
[702.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is a dandelion seeds.
[703.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And as you can see it here, once you're exposed to the air, there is a vortex ring happening
[708.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: above them, which would generate leaf.
[712.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's the reason that how those small seeds, they can fly 100 miles or 160 kilometers
[720.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: through the wind.
[721.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So mimicking them, we actually have generated these micro drones that are inspired from
[727.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: dandelion seeds.
[728.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: They are battery less.
[730.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: They are using solar panels and backscatter communication for basically transferring the
[736.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: data and optical communication as well.
[740.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So they have a humidity sensor, pressure, gas sensor, oxygen sensors, light sensors,
[747.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and they harness energy through the solar panel as well as through the piezoelectric
[751.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: material that they are integrated to the body and through the vibration of the structure
[756.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they will be able to harness energy to provide basically electricity to our micro electronics.
[764.93] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is about 0.3 grams.
[767.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: It's a very, very tiny.
[769.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And the main objective is to have this type of small tiny drones like a couple of grams
[776.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: or milligrams to be deployed by a drone.
[779.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And they will be taken by wind and wind will be able to create the network and start to
[786.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: collect information.
[788.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this type of dandelion seeds can be carried by a robot or they can be carried by a drone.
[795.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here it shows the dropping and the wind will take them actually to far distances.
[800.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So that's an ongoing project we are still working on them.
[805.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So half of my research is drones for planetary explorations.
[810.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Once we talk about drones in other planets, so we need to be careful that the drones that
[815.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: we are designing for the Earth's environment is not going to work in other planets because
[821.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the gravity is changing, there is a different types of atmosphere, different conditions.
[826.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the design process, the traditional design process that we have here is not going to
[832.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: work for drone in other planets.
[835.65] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So these are all these type of drones that they have been designing and building since
[839.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: 2008, including the fixed wing drones, micro aerial vehicles, tilt rotor and tilt wing
[845.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drones as well as flapping wing stones and multi rotors that we have been working which
[852.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I'll show you later on.
[854.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you want to talk about Venus, Venus has extreme condition, high pressure, high
[860.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: temperature and acidic environment.
[862.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the temperature on the surface of the Venus is 700 Kelvin, which is extreme conditions
[871.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: there and Venus has acidic grains and that makes a problem for the drones to fly in that
[881.61] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: harsh condition.
[883.65] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So one of the projects that we did was to develop a drone which can fly in the mid-altitude
[890.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: on Venus and start to harness energy from the available resources there.
[898.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So on Moon, as I said, mainly jumping robot, Titan, which is Saturn's moon.
[905.53] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is the best photo that we have from Titan from one of the past NASA's mission and Titan
[910.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: has the oceans of the liquid methane.
[914.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in the US in collaboration with the JPL NASA
[920.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: or Salomon Social Lab, they have actually designed and built this drone which they were
[924.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: supposed to launch in 2026 and recently I heard from the team that they have postponed
[929.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: it.
[930.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is called Dragonfly.
[931.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: It takes nine years for these drones to get to the Titan and so this is going to use a
[937.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: polytonium-based or nuclear-based propulsion system with drones.
[941.29] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But one of the big challenges of this mission is if something goes wrong with the entry
[946.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: then that would be a disaster for that drone.
[951.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But a project that we have been doing, Titan has atmospheric density five times more than
[958.13] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the density of Earths and the gravity is 10% of gravity of Earths.
[963.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if we attach two wings to our body we easily can gain lift and we can fly on Titan.
[969.09] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have developed a vertical takeoff landing drone which can basically harness energy from
[974.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the available resources on Titan.
[976.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the first one is that drones can land over the liquid methane, harness that liquid methane
[981.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: as a source of the gas and with converting with the onboard oxygen so it has a fuel already
[987.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: available there to fly for long distances on Titan.
[992.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The other two approach which we have inspired from nature is through the thermal and dynamic
[995.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: soldering harnessing energy from the temperature gradient as well as the shear wind on Titan
[1001.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: in order to have a sustainable flight there.
[1006.37] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Mars is a different story.
[1008.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So now this atmosphere, the density of Mars atmosphere is 100 times less than Earths.
[1016.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So one of our bio-inspired concept, you probably have seen these birds that they get the free
[1020.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: ride of the other bird.
[1024.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here there are two options here, the birds that might be lazy or they might be smart.
[1030.13] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So it can be one of them.
[1031.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But probably it can be both because crowds are considered as a smart bird and eagles
[1038.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: sometimes they give free rides to the crowds and they don't mind to give free rides to
[1043.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: crowds.
[1044.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But sometimes they get annoyed because of the extra payload that they need to carry.
[1048.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So what they do actually, they gain elevation and then the crowds no longer can breathe
[1053.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: because there is a less level of oxygen there and then they just go away.
[1056.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So inspiration from this, we actually developed a drone which can have, they can get a free
[1064.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: ride from the other drones for Mars exploration and they can have a precision docking in a
[1070.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: GPS denied environment.
[1073.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here is one of the tests that we did in the lab.
[1075.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we want to have a drone that would basically find that target and can do the precision
[1080.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: docking or I have that subject which is moving which is mimicking my V2L drone and I want
[1088.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to find that and do the docking.
[1091.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is basically mimicking what is happening in nature.
[1094.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here I talked about the dandelions, the application that we have considered for this
[1100.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: multi-agent drone robot system is to study the Martian lava tube or volcanic caves.
[1106.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if we go to the Mars and if we don't have the astronaut suits, we cannot survive more
[1112.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: than 20 seconds and UV light is going to kill us.
[1116.37] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So that's the reason lots of space agencies are looking at the subsurface on Mars as the
[1121.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: potential habitat for the astronauts.
[1124.93] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So one of the NASA's mission, they have found about thousands of these lava tubes or entrances
[1130.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to these volcanic caves that they can be as a potential habitat but they have not been
[1137.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: able to send any robots there because the robots are huge.
[1141.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So a mission that we have defined is a drone would carry out this billboard robot or any
[1145.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: other terrestrial, drop it to these lava tubes and since they have the open entrances, there
[1150.93] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: is a wind going inside and that the robot would be able to deploy those dandelion seeds
[1156.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and they will be able to collect information and find out about what's going on in the
[1161.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: subsurface on Mars.
[1163.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So I'll skip this robotic project here for NASA.
[1169.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So now I want to show you about another aspect which is really important in drone technology
[1176.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: is about energy.
[1178.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you look at the current drones, they cannot fly more than an hour, especially quadcopter
[1183.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and that's a big challenge.
[1185.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So how we can learn from nature to develop some sorts of system which they can basically
[1191.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: save energy.
[1192.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So it's about 10 miles from my college town here, my campus is here, there is a second
[1199.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: largest refuge which is called Bosque del Apache and every year about 300,000 migratory
[1205.61] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: birds from Canada or the colder parts of the US, they come to the south and they basically
[1212.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: stay here for a couple of months.
[1214.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you look at these terminologies, flock, swab, herd, school or huddling in the penguins,
[1221.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: these are that they are animals, they are working together to achieve something and
[1225.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: there are multiple reasons for that.
[1227.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So they are doing this to find food or to as an anti-privator adaption mechanism or
[1233.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: a defense mechanism or in the flock of the birds, they are mainly doing for safe energy.
[1239.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So formation fly or V formation or echelon formation is well known for centuries that
[1245.89] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the birds that are flying in the weed in order to achieve longer descents and reduce their
[1251.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drag.
[1252.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But one thing is that we were the first one, we observed this in this national park and
[1257.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: we tried to learn from that to basically inspire and take this to the drone technology
[1263.79] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: was the load management between these birds.
[1267.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Canadian geese, they can fly 2400 kilometers in a single day and a half.
[1273.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So once he did the modeling and calculations, I'm going to skip this mathematical modeling
[1278.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: or is not like modeling, we find that the birds that they are at the middle position,
[1283.17] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they save more energy than the birds in the leek or in the tail of the flock.
[1289.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But those migratory birds like crane, Canadian geese, northern ball ibises, snow geese, so
[1297.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they are flying as a family and they know each other.
[1301.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So they have different age, different level of experience, different level of health.
[1305.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So who decide who should be the leader and when they switch the leadership?
[1310.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we developed some machine learning algorithms to study these agents and understand the
[1316.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: physics behind them and see how they save energy.
[1320.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So a study showed that if these birds are flying in a weed and they start to switch
[1325.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: their position or shuffling, they can go from 20% to 44% extra descents through this managing
[1334.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the load between themselves.
[1335.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So now imagine that you are integrating to the drones, to the fixing drones and they're
[1339.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: flying together and then you can go extra 40% along with these themselves with just
[1347.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: managing or taking advantage from this aerodynamic effect.
[1351.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is a short video which shows that National Park, which is thousands of the birds
[1355.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: flying together and then they start to make flocks.
[1362.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have done some simulation analysis about optimization of the overlap between the wings
[1369.19] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and we have built flapping wings in order to study the load between themselves, how much
[1377.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: load they are spending and here it shows with artificial flapping wings and they are connected
[1383.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to the load cell to mimic basically this formation of light.
[1386.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: As you can see it here, we have done some fellow visualization, our study actually shows
[1393.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that how these birds they save energy depend on the locations.
[1399.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have done some fellow visualization in order to understand the physics behind
[1404.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: them.
[1405.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is a very unique way in order to understand what happens in the nature and what inspiration
[1412.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: we can get to increase the efficiency of the drones.
[1417.43] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The other thing is the coloration and that has been something that I initiated in 2017
[1423.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and a lot of researchers across the world, they followed my work, is that why birds have
[1428.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: different colors.
[1430.11] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you ask biologists why birds, they have different colors, they have two answers.
[1435.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The first one is they want to attract mate or they want to do the coming flight.
[1438.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But if you look at this oceanic bird like albatross, which I consider as the laziest
[1442.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: bird in the universe because they don't do anything, they just harvest energy from the
[1446.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: shear wing over the ocean and they fly for long distances, they all have black color
[1451.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: at the top and they have white color at the bottom side.
[1454.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So I am from New Mexico in US.
[1457.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if I go outside with this black t-shirt, I feel more hot.
[1462.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So what happened in these birds, the top part is black, so it's going to absorb heat and
[1468.15] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: it changed the flow around them.
[1469.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So like hot air balloons, again, extra relief and they reduce their drag.
[1474.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we actually applied this and we built five affords that can be one of them is actually
[1481.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: this albatross eightfold, the other one is NOCA2412, which is a common eightfold used
[1487.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: in the fixing UAVs as well as in other types of planes.
[1491.59] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And we just, they agree temperature difference.
[1495.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Leaf to drag ratio can enhance a lot.
[1498.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So you see the difference here.
[1500.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The black and white coloration, they have about maximum of 25 degrees Celsius temperature
[1505.63] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: difference.
[1506.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been trying to apply this type of technology in the aviation industry as
[1511.53] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: well as in the fixing drone or also flapping wings in order to increase the flight time
[1517.89] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and flight efficiency and reduce the drag.
[1520.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The same story with the monarchs.
[1523.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we did a project about the coloration of the monarchs, why they have these patterns
[1529.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: of color, the same story here.
[1532.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: If you are a subscriber of National Geographic Action November issue, they actually featured
[1537.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: us about this project that we talked about why monarch butterfly, they have these white
[1543.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: spots in the black trailing edge.
[1546.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here we show that the zebra patterns of black and white and black trailing edge would
[1552.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: increase the flight efficiency to the 3000 miles that those small insects can fly.
[1560.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So monarchs are flying 3000 miles from South Canada to Central Mexico in two and a half
[1566.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: a month, these tiny insects.
[1570.27] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And then this is amazing, 82% of their flight is true to soaring and gliding, they exposed
[1576.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to a sun radiation.
[1577.03] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And I want to show you here, this shows in the cool temperature and you can see the temperature
[1583.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: difference of these white spots in the black trailing edge, which actually they reduced
[1588.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: their drag and increased their leave to their coloration.
[1591.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been trying to look at that the same in the aquatic animals, they have the
[1595.87] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: same features like underwater robots, the black and white.
[1600.35] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And now I want to get to this application of the drones.
[1605.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you want to use drones for monitoring the concentrated solar panels or solar farms,
[1614.39] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the drones can be used for just understanding or finding any more functions in solar panels
[1620.07] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: or sometimes dust cover the solar panel.
[1622.83] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And with the current technology, drones cannot fly more than an hour, the quadcopter.
[1628.09] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's basically a problem for inspection.
[1631.99] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you look at the nature, the birds, they are applying a mechanism which is called a
[1637.47] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: thermal soaring.
[1638.95] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: In a helix way, they go up, they don't flap, they just soar and they use this temperature
[1645.75] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: gradient and try to basically increase their elevation and then they glide and they find
[1654.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: another rising air, they take advantage of the same thing.
[1662.23] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, what we have proposed here to have a drone, which it can fly and harness 20%
[1669.67] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: of energy that the solar panels they are receiving, they are reflecting to the air and they created
[1674.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: these heat fluxes.
[1676.31] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And then we have developed a drone can fly from six to 10 hours, a fixed ring that can
[1681.71] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: harness this upward lift and fly with a solar panel and do the inspection.
[1687.51] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have looked at amphibious drones, drones can dive into the water, change configuration
[1691.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to the fish.
[1692.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have looked at water lilies, we have looked at water lilies as a potential hops, drone
[1704.13] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: hops, because they are the best solar collectors for application of those in marine environment.
[1711.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And this is one of my projects I did a couple of years ago, probably a decade ago, that
[1717.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: so looking at the nature, how animals escape from predator or the defense mechanism.
[1724.13] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So one thing that we have in the biology is called autotomy, which basically the lizards,
[1729.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they sacrifice their tail to rescue the rest of the body.
[1732.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: One of the projects that we did is actually developing a fixed ring drone that's flying
[1738.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: as a UAV and can convert it to five smaller micro aerial vehicles.
[1744.13] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here the idea is that if a part is attacked by a rocket or got damaged, it can score
[1749.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that part and drones can still continue the mission with the rest of the components.
[1755.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is just an example.
[1757.13] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience, downloaded and edited to
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[1777.89] Frank: Find out more at patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[1782.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So smart city in the next five, 10 years, we will see the integration of the doors to
[1788.77] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: our communities and to the urban areas and rural areas.
[1793.65] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is this is coming and then there is a loss of advantage and disadvantages here,
[1799.29] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: like cybersecurity is one of the big challenges.
[1801.69] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But one projects that I have been working with NASA and National Science Foundation
[1805.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: here in the U.S. is that how we can develop some source of the drone nest or drone vertiport
[1812.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that can support drone, charge drones, deploy drones in a fully autonomous way.
[1817.93] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here we have looked at the trees and then we have developed three inspired vertiports
[1825.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that basically drones can land there, can get charged, can dump the data there.
[1830.21] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And if we get the trees, the birds, they make the nest there, honeybees or vasts that makes
[1834.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: their hives there.
[1835.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is the concept that we have developed can be integrated to our cities and any altruized
[1843.41] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: person can connect it to this trees as a hub and fly drones, launch them.
[1851.21] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have looked at we actually built one of this here.
[1855.05] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And I want to show you the application of this in oil and gas industry, these animations.
[1861.37] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So alternate oil and gas is one of the biggest challenges is that they leak the methane gas.
[1869.17] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here are projects funded by National Science Foundation is to have this portable sustainable
[1875.65] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: vertiport for monsters in the field, which they can basically monitor the environment,
[1880.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the weather condition and deploy a swarm of the drones, which they can fly in that
[1885.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: region and collect information and map the type of gases as well as all those information
[1894.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that you want to collect in the field.
[1897.91] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the other application, I have two projects from mining industry in order to integrate
[1903.33] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drone technology to the mining.
[1906.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, if you have any electronics that goes to the coal mine should be intrinsically
[1913.69] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: safe or permissible.
[1916.29] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And any regulation like in the US, there is a MSHAW, which stands for Mine Health and
[1921.77] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Safety Association.
[1923.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: They have a restrict rules for any electronics that goes to the coal mines because coal mines,
[1928.89] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they have the methane gas and any electronics should be permissible.
[1933.85] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: That means that you should put in the container with the quarter inch steel.
[1938.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And basically, it's impossible for a drone to find that condition.
[1942.53] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the projects that we did last four years is to develop the first permissible or intrinsically
[1950.01] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: safe drones for coal mines.
[1951.65] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we built this drone, which is this composite material can stand 150 PSI pressure and all
[1959.69] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the electronics inside of this component.
[1961.69] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So another problem is that how we are going to attach the propellers to the motors.
[1966.81] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we use magnetic coupler and to the magnetic force, we basically rotate the propellers.
[1973.55] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So everything is inside of the enclosure and with the heat sink, we mitigate the heat.
[1978.25] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this was one of our first successful flight, which actually is very heavy drones because
[1983.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: permissibility and safety increase the weight of the drone.
[1988.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have been trying to do some optimization in this matter.
[1992.81] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So everything is custom made, including the battery.
[1999.0] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here you can see the temperature is like 13 degrees Celsius and it shows that our heat
[2004.48] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: sinks, they have been working to mitigate the heat from the internal electronics.
[2013.4] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: This is our big projects.
[2015.68] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have been funded by NIOSH CDC in the United States that we have developed the multi-agent
[2022.44] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: drone robot system for search and rescue in underground mines.
[2026.4] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, this is basically a Husky UGV that we have developed a smart box, which that
[2031.96] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: box would basically deploy a drone and our robot or drone would have a precision landing
[2038.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: capability in the GPS denied environment.
[2042.44] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So then going back to the nature is that the flowers and bees, they talk to each other
[2049.36] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to the magnetic field and the way it works, flowers, they create a very weak magnetic
[2055.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: field.
[2056.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And one of these, they are flying around the flowers, they have a small hair in their legs
[2061.84] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and their body.
[2063.24] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So because of that magnetic field, those hair get a static charge and start to move and
[2069.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: vibrate in that magnetic field.
[2071.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And once they get close to the flowers, they land exactly where the flowers.
[2076.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's basically, we have been trying to develop some precision landing capability
[2080.56] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: for the drones, which they can land exactly over the flowers.
[2086.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we are using the same methodology here, having a robot and our drones that have this
[2093.48] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: characteristic.
[2094.48] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So this is actually a short video that we tested in underground mines in Missouri, which
[2100.36] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: basically shows our drones flying and try to collect information and create the map
[2106.2] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: while it's flying underground mines.
[2108.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And so the challenge about underground mines is it's dark, it's dusty, it's GPS denied,
[2115.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: it's very, very hard to fly in those sorts of situation.
[2120.24] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But what we have been doing, we have this map generated by this robot, as well as by
[2125.6] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: our drone, in order to have more efficient way for the session rescue during time of
[2130.88] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: accident in the mines.
[2133.38] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have developed a sensor packages that can be carried by this rover and they can
[2138.92] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: communicate with drones for situational awareness.
[2142.36] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have developed an ostrich egg-inspired sensor package, which they can measure humidity,
[2147.36] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: pressure, the type of gases, the level of oxygen, and the drones and robot, they basically
[2153.12] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: modify their past planning based on the information that they are getting from this stationary
[2158.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: sensors that you are dropped by underground vehicles.
[2163.52] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So now I want to get to the main project that you basically are talking about, about taxidermy
[2168.84] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: BERT.
[2170.12] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So one of the applications, so drones by today, they have more than 200 applications.
[2174.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And one of the applications is for wildlife monitoring.
[2178.0] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you want to use quadcopters or hexacopter for wildlife monitoring, there is a lot of
[2184.12] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: challenges there.
[2185.12] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So those create noise and animals will be scared and scattered and you cannot basically
[2191.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: follow them.
[2192.72] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And that's one challenge.
[2195.36] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The other one is the BERT strike.
[2197.88] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And probably you have seen it in lots of videos that drones are being attacked by birds or
[2204.84] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: birds get hurt by drones.
[2208.22] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here what we did about two years ago, we are still working on that and we have a new
[2214.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: project which will be out really soon in the continuation of this, is that I should basically
[2223.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: clarify this.
[2224.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We haven't killed any BERT for this project.
[2226.82] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So these are naturally dead BERT taxidermied by taxidermies.
[2230.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We just purchased them and tried to do reverse engineering and make them as a drone again
[2236.3] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and make them fly again.
[2238.42] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, this is our BERT pheasant and the pigeon feathers and also the wings, these
[2245.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: are the hummingbirds wings.
[2247.38] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And what you have been looking at to apply this type of the components of taxidermy birds
[2257.3] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: into the drones in order to create this type of motion.
[2263.24] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here I want to show you the full flight of this.
[2266.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And as you can see it here, we have built multiple examples.
[2269.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: You have flapping wings as well as the R fixed wings.
[2274.3] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So with different feathers wings.
[2276.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And I don't know, you know, Stephen Colbert, you know, this has a show in the United States.
[2282.02] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I want to show you a point that he brought it here.
[2286.18] (VT): We have a power pack show tonight.
[2290.58] (VT): A young lay searches are turning taxidermied birds into drones, which could be potentially
[2297.54] (VT): a very useful espionage tool because it will look more like the real thing and hopefully
[2302.42] (VT): is more inclined to be ignored, maybe ignored by spy targets or about the other birds.
[2307.06] (VT): Oh my God, Phil, we thought you were dead.
[2309.86] (VT): Hey everybody.
[2310.86] (VT): Hey, Phil.
[2311.86] (VT): Hey, Mary.
[2312.86] (VT): I love you, Phil.
[2313.86] (VT): Don't you recognize the kids?
[2316.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So yeah, it brought a very good point because we don't know how nature is going to respond
[2323.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: to this technology.
[2325.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So currently we have envisioned three civil applications for these drones.
[2330.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The first one is for wildlife monitoring.
[2332.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: The second one is find the stores with the flock of the birds who study that, how they
[2337.06] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: communicate with each other, how they save energy, how coloration would help birds to
[2342.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: save energy.
[2343.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we're using that to build this example for gliding and sorting.
[2346.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And the new application that we have defined, if you go to the airports that are near the
[2350.94] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: ocean, so one of the big challenges is bird strike.
[2354.74] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So it's basically flock of the birds that can get into the engine and then they can
[2358.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: hurt animals.
[2359.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Here, basically, they will die and they also hurt engines.
[2364.14] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you have a predator bird, like an eagle or house, and do the same thing, and we program
[2370.9] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: them to fly around the airport so you no longer see the fox around the plane.
[2375.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So that's another application.
[2377.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So currently, we have been working with the dock, the molar dock, there's some new projects.
[2383.02] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We have been looking at the purchasing mechanism with shape memory alloy, that those birds
[2386.82] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: can basically land over the trees or the electricity grids in order to get charged.
[2394.58] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And we are also working a water version of that, the swimming version that they can swim
[2401.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: in the water.
[2403.24] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been looking at the leaf or one time used inspired leaf insects inspired drone.
[2411.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So the leaves, the drawers, they can be built from this materials of leaves and a new project
[2417.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that we have started.
[2419.22] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So whatever I talked here was about a biomimicry and bioinspiration.
[2423.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So now we are looking at a meteorology called inspired drones, religion inspired drone,
[2430.5] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: cultural inspired drone, as well as historical inspired drone.
[2436.4] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So if you look at the meteorology of different culture, they are talking about flying objects,
[2440.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: including the flying rocks or carpets, which sticks, dragons, the different types of birds.
[2447.5] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So a student called my bird Phil, but we call it Phoenix, because Phoenix is called from
[2453.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: his ashes.
[2454.42] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So we have been looking at archaeological flights and inspired drones in order to understand
[2461.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: those type of creators and how we can learn from them or based on the culture.
[2467.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So for example, there are different cultures, they're talking about flights, so extracting
[2472.58] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: them and like Navajo culture in the US or indigenous people here, that's how we can
[2478.54] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: basically develop technologies or drones based on these things.
[2484.82] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So these are like all my research.
[2487.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I have been running a drone program at New Mexico Tech.
[2492.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So I have educated K-12 students, high school students, middle school students, their teachers,
[2497.74] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they come and they learn about drone technology, they build drones here and about 400 undergraduate
[2503.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: students, they have educated about this, as well as 55 master and PhD in my team,
[2510.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that the research actually was the one that I presented.
[2514.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I have 10 research laboratories and about nine of them is drone related, from the air
[2519.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: ships to the drones in the simulated mines, to our drone cage, which is a small platforms
[2526.38] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: that you can connect it online, you can fly drones online.
[2530.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: You can create the mean patterns and you see the flight trajectory on your drone as
[2537.06] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: well as some fundamental labs that we have.
[2540.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: These are my funding resources that I should acknowledge them and I think that's all.
[2547.22] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So I think...
[2548.22] Frank: Thank you very much.
[2549.22] Frank: Of course.
[2550.22] Frank: If there's any particular projects that people want to read up more about afterwards, where's
[2554.1] Frank: the best place for them to go to find out more?
[2557.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: All of this, I have a YouTube channel, if they search my name, they can see a couple
[2562.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: of my recorded videos there and then I have a website, I can share it with you guys.
[2569.06] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: It's about these things and if they want to look from the scientific aspects, my Google
[2574.38] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Scholar, if they search my name, all my publications, they are available in Google Scholar as well
[2580.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: as in the research gate.
[2582.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Excellent.
[2584.54] Koel: In the description of the video too, there are a few links to, I believe, your YouTubes
[2589.46] Koel: in there and I think your Instagram as well.
[2595.1] Frank: I think there are a few questions in the chat that we will ask in a second, but I wanted
[2599.62] Frank: to ask, you've looked at the biomechanics of birds and you've looked at the mechanics
[2608.06] Frank: of drones.
[2609.06] Frank: I was wondering how much of it is, it's obviously like a bird, it's flying around most of the
[2614.94] Frank: day and eats a few crumbs of bread occasionally and that's fine and a drone can fly at the
[2623.58] Frank: same sort of speed for a couple of minutes and then need to be charging.
[2627.22] Frank: How much of it is that the batteries we have are just not very energy dense and how much
[2634.62] Frank: of it is that our drones are not very efficient, where's the benefit?
[2640.22] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So here, so we are looking at two different types of drones.
[2643.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, we have a quadcopter drones which the propellers are responsible to generate lift
[2649.02] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and thrust and we have the flapping wing drones which the wings is responsible to generate
[2653.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: lift and thrust.
[2654.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, the way that the birds they flap, there are two steps, there is downstroke and upstroke.
[2660.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: In downstroke, the wing is straightforward and it just goes down and the wing in that
[2665.94] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: stage is generating lift and once thrust, it breaks the wings, twist it and that's the
[2670.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: place that they have less lift and they have more thrust and that's the reason that birds
[2674.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: are flying like that.
[2675.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, there are multiple ways that birds save energy, which we have been trying to look
[2680.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: at that, from their big shape to their body shape to their harnessing energy from resources.
[2686.94] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Like I talked to Albatros, these are the, as I said, the laziest birds in the universe
[2691.06] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: because they are flying 9,000 miles nonstop and I heard in their literature that they
[2696.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: just sleep two seconds per night and because they don't do anything, they just harness
[2701.54] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: energy from the sheer window of the ocean or they harness energy from the thermals.
[2707.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, that's the reason that birds, they can fly for long times or I talked about Canadian
[2714.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: geese, 2,400 km in a single day and a half is a lot.
[2718.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: There is no single drone in that size, you can achieve the same thing.
[2722.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, there are multiple factors.
[2724.54] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, regarding the endurance, which is one of the big challenges of drones, I mean, depending
[2728.9] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: on the configuration for sure, the aerodynamics of the drones, its shapes and its size, its
[2735.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: weight, so there are multiple factors but the current battery, the life of batteries,
[2740.86] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: they probably give like an hour max for the flight but a new technology which is coming
[2746.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and we have a pending book about, it's about liquid hydrogen or fuel cell technology into
[2754.82] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the drone.
[2755.82] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: There is a Korean company called Metavista and they have built a quadcopter which is
[2760.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: flying 11 hours with a 350 grams liquid hydrogen.
[2767.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, this is a new technology that we see in the future that our drone will be able to
[2772.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: fly longer distances or drones can be like, if your flight range is not too much, there
[2779.94] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: can be laser guided power drones.
[2784.1] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So it's basically you can send the photons or energy from the ground to the laser and
[2789.3] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: charge the batteries while you are flying, just lock the laser into the drone.
[2794.7] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So there are multiple ways and I think the future of drone technology is going to that
[2800.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: direction to make drones that they are basically can fly longer distances as well as longer
[2810.74] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: time with more endurance.
[2813.5] Koel: Interesting.
[2815.5] Koel: So, you know, I actually had a question.
[2818.46] Koel: It's not exactly on the technological side of things but I'm just curious with the design
[2823.78] Koel: aspects of what you're doing with the mimicry, have you gotten any pushback from naturalists
[2830.06] Koel: or people that are maybe like, oh, you know, nature lovers and whatnot?
[2837.26] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So actually, yes, last night I had the same presentation in Los Alamos in another city
[2844.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: in the north of New Mexico.
[2846.34] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: They are all bird lovers and they actually attended my talk.
[2853.02] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And here, I haven't had because nature is beautiful, you just look at that, you get
[2859.66] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: inspiration and to that we basically appreciate the nature.
[2864.58] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: But for my dead bird drone, I actually got a little bit because the way that news get
[2870.02] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: out was that we don't have the technology to find the people, which was not right.
[2874.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And I was connected to this conspiracy theory that birds are not real.
[2879.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And so they actually talked to me and asked me to work with them.
[2884.9] Jack: Yeah.
[2885.9] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So, I mean, everybody's known as a joke, but I clarified in my other interviews that this
[2897.62] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: is something that's going to help nature, not hurt nature, right?
[2901.58] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So lots of birds in the wildlife, they are being killed by drones or they're attacked
[2907.98] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: by, or drones are attacked by them.
[2909.9] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And this is a, we call it nature friendly drone.
[2913.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: It's a configuration, which is just feathers and wings and bones, right?
[2920.9] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And then we are using that as a platform to save nature rather than hurting nature.
[2928.18] Koel: And it seems like they can kind of blend in almost too, right?
[2931.14] Koel: Like they're, I mean, I'm sure a bird could maybe be able to tell that, you know, something's
[2935.38] Koel: a little off with this bird, but it, you know, it's, uh, yeah, no, just, uh, sort of
[2941.06] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the funny part, the first time we were testing this in the field, we found out the birds
[2944.5] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: are flying around and don't care, but, uh, Stephen Colbert had a, at a good point.
[2949.14] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: How about if you have a predator bird and for sure they might attack to this robotic
[2955.54] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: birds.
[2956.54] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So what you have been trying to explore now is integration of artificial intelligence
[2961.46] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: into this type of robotic birds in order to make them smart enough to, to maneuver
[2966.74] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: as well as the way that bears harnessing energy, and then they can fly for longer times because
[2972.58] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: current prototype that we have bugs like from 10 to 15, 20 minutes, uh, that's, that's their
[2978.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: flight time.
[2979.18] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: And, and we have been looking at the other assets which I showed you that how we can
[2983.78] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: make them, uh, fly for longer times.
[2988.8] Frank: Just the last few minutes before we come up to the end of the hour. Um, Caroline was asking
[2995.2] Frank: about, uh, I think about the, the dandelion drones. Um, uh, oh no, actually probably the
[3003.12] Frank: colorings of the wings. Uh, is it, do you know if it's the, like the, the warmer air
[3011.44] Frank: that's, uh, creating a thin film, he's asking, does it create a thin film to reduce?
[3017.92] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: Exactly. So what happens here? So the top part, which is black, the bottom side is white,
[3023.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and we actually have looked at all the black and white means to explain why they have a specific
[3030.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: consider this type of the collaboration patterns. And we have a pending pattern and my, my former
[3035.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: PhD students actually issued a company based on desk. So here it depends on the position. So the
[3041.04] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: most efficient one there is the one that they're trailing edge is black. Uh, so they have the
[3045.68] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: highest lift to drag ratio and the way it works is change the boundary layer around them and the
[3051.04] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: airflow. And then you have a drag deduction because of that patterns, uh, she's, we call it
[3056.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: heated boundary layer and also changing the, the leaf. So, uh, the other example where if you look
[3066.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: at the cranes or other birds, their wing tips are black. If you ask biologists why those birds have
[3072.56] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: black pigmentation in the wing tips, the answer is black color is coming from the concentration
[3078.16] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: of melanin and melanin would increase the strength of feathers or experimental study showed that
[3083.68] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: between black and white, they can be maximum of 25 degrees Celsius temperature difference.
[3089.28] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So those being teams, those are the regions that you have those upwash and downwash regions
[3094.48] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and you have those vortices and that temperature difference is going to change the shape of those
[3099.2] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: vortices. And again, you have drag deduction and that's the reason that eagles, crows,
[3104.24] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: all those big birds, they have black pigmentation in their wing tips. So depending on the positions,
[3109.92] Koel: it can be different aerodynamic characteristics. And actually Caroline also was out wondering about
[3118.48] Koel: the, um, the dandelion, um, ones, do they generate the vortex via convection or movement? So the
[3125.6] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: dandelions one sex or pose to the side wing. So the airflow or, or from the bottom side,
[3131.76] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: so the airflow is passing, they have the purpose. So, and then they basically create pressure
[3136.8] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: difference at the top and the bottom side. And that's the difference to generate leave.
[3141.44] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So that's the way how they stay in the air. And the convection is basically take them forward.
[3146.08] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: So they fly to the wind, but they stay in the wind to this lift, which they are generating.
[3153.92] Jack: Wow. That's interesting. Yeah, you're looking at nature just for efficiency.
[3164.21] Koel: Because everything's just been min maxed. Yeah. I mean, everything that we know is basically,
[3174.21] Koel: you know, or anything that we try to take from is most of the times from nature. So it makes sense
[3179.33] Koel: that you utilize that aspect of it for, you know, for this sort of technology side of things. It's
[3185.41] Jack: it's very cool. Thank you. I do like your cyborg logo with the pigeon with the antenna.
[3193.89] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I think cyborg, cyborg, right? So the way that this works is that here, there is like some
[3205.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: source of research in this area, controlling the beetle or, or a control implant and the brain of
[3210.93] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: the pigeon. But the way that we have two different ways, the one time, one part is to the brain
[3217.09] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: control. The other one is to control the muscle through the nervous system. So the way that it
[3222.45] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: works, they send some pulse to the nervous system to get the feedback. And we're just
[3226.69] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: controlling or programming the electronic chip, they can control the emotion. But this is, I mean,
[3233.49] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I haven't touched this area, but because I don't think it's moral to use animal for our own
[3239.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: perspective. That's the reason I worked with the dead bird. Not a bit alive one.
[3243.57] Jack: Yeah, it's it kind of like reminds me of that parasitic fungus in Ants.
[3255.57] Jack: I don't know what it's called. What is it?
[3259.33] Frank: But it's fascinating. It's definitely interesting to hear that you, you know,
[3264.21] Frank: specifically gone out and found birds that have died. I mean, that's that. I'm sure if Tony had
[3271.65] Frank: known that at the very beginning, he would have been here on the idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
[3278.21] Frank: thank you very much for coming on and informing us about all of this. Yeah. Very interesting.
[3285.89] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: We've been having lots of comments in the chat. I'm sorry, it's really fast. So I wanted to give
[3290.93] Jack: you a overview of what you have been doing. So no, it was great. Absolutely. When your new release
[3298.53] Jack: by a project comes out, feel free to drop us a message. You always welcome back.
[3305.49] Jack: You are deeply fascinating. It's the quickest hour.
[3310.93] Koel: I feel like I feel like it's like we need another hour just to hear more.
[3317.73] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I mean, maybe another time. Yeah, we are teachers here in university. So we can talk for the whole
[3321.97] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: day. Do you fly for fun or anything? Yeah, yeah. I did drone filming as well. I fly drones. And so
[3334.21] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: I am actually building at New Mexico Tech, a drone facility here, about 36,000 square feet
[3341.57] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: net drone cage tracking system with 90 feet height, which basically everybody can fly drones
[3350.61] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: and different drones. Yeah, that's the dream. And we are creating a drone major. If anybody
[3357.81] Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian: interested to study. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[3368.29] Jack: Um, it's been very informative. You've been unbelievably listening to let thrown out.
[3373.65] Jack: What a nice change. We've had wonderful guests.
[3381.73] Koel: Here, I'll do it, Jack. Mustafa Hassan Ali and Dr. Mustafa Hassan Ali and
[3388.21] Jack: everybody call me Mustafa. So yeah, yeah. Thank you.
[3394.21] Jack: I'm Lord and Master Andrew slash Frank. Goodbye. My buddy, Cole. Thank you for that.
[3400.69] Jack: See you. And I've been Jack right until I fly. Thank you to all our wonderful patrons.
[3407.09] UNKNOWN: Have a good night. Bye. Bye. Thanks very much telemetry loss.