Progress in Mechanical Modeling of Implantable Flexible Neural Probes

Implanted neural probes can detect weak discharges of neurons in the brain by piercing soft brain tissue,thus as important tools for brain science research,as well as diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases.However,the rigid neural probes,such as Utah arrays,Michigan probes,and metal microfilament electrodes,are mechanically unmatched with brain tissue and are prone to rejection and glial scarring after implantation,which leads to a significant degradation in the signal quality with the implantation time.In recent years,flexible neural electrodes are rapidly developed with less damage to biological tissues,excellent biocompatibility,and mechanical compliance to alleviate scarring.Among them,the mechanical modeling is important for the optimization of the structure and the implantation process.In this review,the theoretical calculation of the flexible neural probes is firstly summarized with the processes of buckling,insertion,and relative interaction with soft brain tissue for flexible probes from outside to inside.Then,the corresponding mechanical simulation methods are organized considering multiple impact factors to realize minimally invasive implantation.Finally,the technical difficulties and future trends of mechanical modeling are discussed for the next-generation flexible neural probes,which is critical to realize low-invasiveness and long-term coexistence in vivo.

Performance Analysis on Retractable Landing Gear and Design of Ground Test System

Landing gears are one of the key components for large or middle unmanned aerial vehicles,and their working performances directly affect flying security and aircraft taking-off and landing performance.Thus,it is meaningful to study the retraction system.Based on CATIA and ADAMS software platforms,a virtual model of landing gear retraction system is built for performance test,and then dynamic simulation is carried out.Afterwards,a test system for landing gear retraction is established,and the test data are compared with the results acquired from dynamics simulation.The main factors which affect the dynamic performance of retractable landing gear are analyzed emphatically.The simulation results show that aerodynamic load has an impact on retraction time,the mass force affects extension process,and the oil hole size of hydraulic actuator has an effect on both retraction time and extension time.

Transition Stage Control of Tail Sitter Aircraft Based on Guardian Maps

To deal with the high nonlinearities and strong couplings in the transition stage of tailsitter aircraft,an adaptive gainscheduling controller is proposed by combining the guardian maps theory and H∞control theory.This method is applied to track the flightpath angle of the transition stage of tailsitter aircraft,and compared with the linear quadratic regulator(LQR)method based on traditional gain scheduling.Simulation results show that the controller based on the guardian maps theory can autonomously schedule the appropriate control parameters and accomplish the stable transition.Besides,the proposed method shows better tracking performance than the LQR method based on traditional gain scheduling.

Aerodynamic Performance of Three Flapping Wings with Unequal Spacing in Tandem Formation

To better understand the aerodynamic reasons for highly organized movements of flying organisms,the three-flapping wing system in tandem formation was studied numerically in this paper.Different from previous relevant studies on the multiple flapping wings that are equally spaced,this study emphasizes the impact of unequal spacing between individuals on the aerodynamics of each individual wing as well as the whole system.It is found that swapping the distance between the first and second wing with the distance between the second wing and the rearmost wing does not affect the overall aerodynamic performance,but significantly changes the distribution of aerodynamic benefits across each wing.During the whole flapping cycle,three effects are at play.The narrow channel effect and the downwash effect can promote and weaken the wing lift,respectively,while the wake capture effect can boost the thrust.It also shows that these effects could be manipulated by changing the spacing between adjacent wings.These findings provide a novel way for flow control in tandem formation flight and are also inspiring for designing the formation flight of bionic aircraft.

Gradient Descent Algorithm for Small UAV Parameter Estimation System

A gradient descent algorithm with adjustable parameter for attitude estimation is developed,aiming at the attitude measurement for small unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)in real-time flight conditions.The accelerometer and magnetometer are introduced to construct an error equation with the gyros,thus the drifting characteristics of gyroscope can be compensated by solving the error equation utilized by the gradient descent algorithm.Performance of the presented algorithm is evaluated using a self-proposed micro-electro-mechanical system(MEMS)based attitude heading reference system which is mounted on a tri-axis turntable.The on-ground,turntable and flight experiments indicate that the estimation attitude has a good accuracy.Also,the presented system is compared with an open-source flight control system which runs extended Kalman filter(EKF),and the results show that the attitude control system using the gradient descent method can estimate the attitudes for UAV effectively.