2022 Annual Report 2022 | Page 42

JESSE GRANGER
THE TUNNEL COMES ONLINE
After a month of settling in and fine-tuning the structure , the team was ready to put the tunnel to work . A celebratory showcase event was held June 29 to mark the official start of research in this joint effort with the UBD . The event included video greetings from Virginia Tech leaders who were unable to make the trip to Brunei , including Guru Ghosh , vice president for Outreach and International Affairs , and Julia M . Ross , the Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Dean of Engineering .
“ The bats of Borneo have some of the most sophisticated biosonar and flight systems found in nature ,” said Ross via video . “ Up to now , no engineered system has come anywhere near the performance of these amazing animals . Learning from these bats will
Rolf Mueller ( at center ) meets with guests at the Brunei showcase event June 29 . enable new technologies that push the envelope of what man-made autonomous systems can do .”
Jeffrey Barrus , public affairs officer of the U . S . Embassy in Brunei , delivered congratulatory remarks on behalf of Caryn McClelland , the U . S . ambassador to Brunei . The event was attended by the UBD president and several vice presidents , a delegation from the U . S . embassy , directors from four ministries of the Brunei government , as well as representatives from Brunei businesses .
With the celebration behind them , full work days in the lab facility began . On a typical day , the students split into teams . One team develops and maintains the tunnel , preparing hundreds of meters of cabling for the array and fixing any issues that arise . Another team continues to develop the flapping-flight robot and the sonar robot by testing and writing dedicated code to give the robots the commands they need to move . A final team is focused on field work . This team gets to sleep late , but also works well into the night to find and observe bats . Having been extensively trained in the capture of bats , this team brings the animals back to the lab for behavioral observations in the flight tunnel . Eventually ,
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