Abstract
This research endeavors to design the perching maneuver and control in ornithopter robots. By analyzing the dynamic interplay between the robot's flight dynamics, feedback loops, and the environmental constraints, we aim to advance our understanding of the perching maneuver, drawing parallels to biological systems. Inspired by the elegant control strategies observed in avian flight, we develop an optimal maneuver and a corresponding controller to achieve stable perching. The maneuver consists of a deceleration and a rapid pitch-up (vertical turn), which arises from analytically solving the optimization problem of minimal velocity at perch, subject to kinematic and dynamic constraints. The controller for the flapping frequency and tail symmetric deflection is nonlinear and adaptive, ensuring robustly stable perching. Indeed, such adaptive behavior in a sense incorporates homeostatic principles of cybernetics into the control system, enhancing the robot's ability to adapt to unexpected d