Our Research
The Bio-Inspired Perception and Robotics Laboratory (BPRL) is a facility in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder that conducts research and development in the area of biologically inspired robotics. We seek to distill the fundamental sensing, processing and feedback principles that govern robust behavior in organisms to enable new classes of robotic systems with improved agility, locomotion and autonomy. The lab actively focuses on the following research areas:
- Autonomous navigation, planning and collision avoidance
- Semantic-based mapping and reasoning
- Efficient representations of unstructured and subterranean environments
- Integration of embedded hardware/software systems and communications
- Rotary, fixed and flapping wing UAS flight mechanics, stability, control and system identification
- Reduction principles in biology
- Novel sensorimotor feedback architectures
- Bio-inspired sensors and sensory processing
- Insect-inspired mechanisms for gust rejection
- Sensor- and actuator-rich feedback control
- Dynamics of highly flexible synthetic systems
- Low-power, lightweight arrayed MEMS and analog VLSI based avionics