Project SAMARA — Samara-inspired Adaptive Multirotor for Aerial Resilience Applications
Built by varunvarunca99
My research investigates how nature-inspired aerial systems can fly longer, adapt more intelligently, and respond more effectively in environments where human access is limited or dangerous. It began with a single question drawn from a fundamental constraint in flight: why do drones waste so much energy hovering, and can biology show us a better way? Building on actuator disk theory and the autorotating flight of the samara seed, I designed and tested a rotating tricopter that converts its entire airframe into one large virtual propeller, and I measured an average 60.2% reduction in hover power consumption compared to a conventional stationary configuration. That result is the foundation, not the destination. The larger goal of my work is to develop adaptive biomimetic UAV systems for resilient infrastructure and environmental response. By combining biological flight principles with real-time sensing, onboard energy management, and AI-assisted decision-making, I aim to build drones that can adjust their flight behavior to wind, battery state, and terrain, sustaining longer endurance and reliable performance in complex settings such as wildfire monitoring, search-and-rescue zones, and remote or damaged infrastructure. Wildfire response is one important application, but the central idea is broader: how can efficient, adaptive, and intelligent aerial systems extend human reach into places we cannot safely or persistently go ourselves?