Robert C. Michelson (born 1951) is an American engineer and academic who invented the
entomopter
An Entomopter is an aircraft that flies using the wing-flapping aerodynamics of an insect. The word is derived from ''entomo'' (meaning insect: as in entomology) + ''pteron'' (meaning wing). Entomopters are type of ornithopter, which is the broad ...
, a
biologically inspired
Bioinspiration refers to the human development of novel materials, devices, structures, and behaviors inspired by solutions found in biological organisms, where they have evolved and been refined over millions of years. The goal is to improve model ...
flapping-winged aerial robot, and who established the
International Aerial Robotics Competition
The International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) is a university-based robotics competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 1991, collegiate teams with the backing of industry and government have fielded auto ...
. Michelson's career began at the
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...
. He later became a member of the research faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of three U.S.
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
s and over 100 journal papers, book chapters and reports. Michelson is the recipient of the 1998 AUVSI Pioneer Award and the 2001
Pirelli Award for the diffusion of scientific culture as well as the first Top Pirelli Prize.
Early life and education

Michelson was born in 1951 in Washington D.C., the only son of Carroll and Evelyn Michelson, and is related to
Christian Michelsen
Peter Christian Hersleb Kjerschow Michelsen (15 March 1857– 29 June 1925), better known as Christian Michelsen, was a Norwegian shipping magnate and statesman. He was the first prime minister of independent Norway from 1905 to 1907. Michelse ...
, the first Prime Minister of Norway. Michelson attended the
Burgundy Farm Country Day School during the sixth through eighth grades. While at Fort Hunt High School he was President of the Fort Hunt Amateur Rocket Club which built large (2m x 5 cm) instrumented
solid fuel rockets that were launched at the
Camp Pickett artillery range in
Blackstone, Virginia
Blackstone, formerly named Blacks and Whites, and then Bellefonte, is a town in Nottoway County in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 3,621 at the 2010 census.
History
The settlement was founded as the village of "Blacks and Whites ...
. He graduated from
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...
in 1973 and the
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...
in 1974 with degrees in
Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
.
Career
From 1971 to 1973, Michelson was a research engineer working on aerospace radar systems at the
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...
in Washington D.C. He then moved to the
Georgia Tech Research Institute
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit applied research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. GTRI employs around 3,000 people, and was involved in nearly $1 ...
in Atlanta, Georgia. During the 1970s and 1980s Michelson primarily developed radar signal processing and control hardware, but was also interested in the automation of remote sensing systems ranging from the tracking of endangered species to the creation of realistic soldier training scenarios and simulation and testing of foreign military radar assets. In the late 1980s he became Head of the Georgia Tech Research Institute's Technology Development Division and his interests turned to unmanned aerial vehicle systems as a fusion of autonomy, information technology, and
aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere.
While the term originally referred ...
. In particular, "aerial robotics" (a term he coined in 1990 to represent the infusion of cognition into unmanned aerial vehicles) dominated his research for the next two decades.
Since the mid-1990s, Michelson's work has concentrated on biologically inspired micro air vehicle design. From 1997 through 2004, Michelson was adjunct associate professor to the School of Aerospace Engineering, teaching classes in avionics for
unmanned aerial vehicles
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...
(UAVs) and
Micro/Mini Air Vehicle (MAV) design. Michelson retired from the Georgia Tech Research Institute in 2004 and currently holds the title of Principal Research Engineer Emeritus with the institute.
In 2004, he created Millennial Vision, LLC to continue research into biologically inspired aerial robots and remote sensing. He is the President of SEPDAC (Scientific Enterprise in Pursuit and Discovery of Ancient Cultures), a nonprofit educational and scientific organization.
Michelson was the U.S. representative and deputy chief referee to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China's UAV Grand Prix during its inaugural year (2011), and again in 2013 and 2015. He was the section editor for "MAVs and Bio-Inspired UAVs" in Springer's Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, released in 2014. Michelson was chosen to represent the United States on the NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (
AGARD
The Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) was an agency of NATO that existed from 1952 to 1996.
AGARD was founded as an Agency of the NATO Military Committee. It was set up in May 1952 with headquarters in Neuilly sur Sei ...
) to predict future (2020 timeframe) sensor technologies for unmanned aerial systems (
UAS). He was the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
/RTA (Research and Technology Agency) lecturer at the
Turkish Air Force Academy
The Turkish Air Force Academy (TAFA; ) is a co-educational military academy located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is part of the National Defence University. It is the main human resource for the Turkish Air Force Command.
It was founded in 1951, re ...
(Hava Harp Okulu) in
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
in 2006, and invited lecturer on Micro Air Vehicle technology at the
von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics
The von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) is a non-profit educational and scientific organization which specializes in three specific fields: aeronautics and aerospace, environment and applied fluid dynamics, turbomachinery and propuls ...
in 1999 and 2003. He was the first "
MITRE
The mitre (Commonwealth English) or miter (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences; both pronounced ; ) is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of ...
Technology Speaker"(1998) and has been a visiting technology professor in Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Turkey and Mexico.
Michelson was a consultant to the U.S. Army and the Indian Ministry of Defence in 2008, responsible for defining and organizing the 1st U.S.-Asian Micro Air Vehicle Demonstration in
Agra
Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
.
He performed similar duties for the U.S. Army in defining the 1st US-European Micro Air Vehicle Competition/Demonstration in
Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen (; ) is an Alpine ski town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the seat of government of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen (abbreviated ''GAP''), in the Oberbayern region, which borders Austria. Nearby is Ger ...
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in 2005. He is creator and organizer of the annual
International Aerial Robotics Competition
The International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) is a university-based robotics competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 1991, collegiate teams with the backing of industry and government have fielded auto ...
.
Projects
While at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Michelson worked on radar-based ocean surveillance systems and flew hardware test missions on a
Lockheed Warning Star PO-1W Super Constellation. In 1974 Michelson began work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, where he got his first contract when an entry-level engineer (Research Engineer I). This first project involved methods to electronically track the endangered species ''Trichechus manatus'' (
West Indian manatee
The West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus''), also known as the North American manatee, is a large, aquatic mammal native to warm coastal areas of the Caribbean, from the Eastern United States to northern Brazil. Living alone or in herds, it ...
) in the waters around the
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...
.
In 1979, Michelson directed the Army's Indirect Fire Simulation effort conducted for Combat Development and Experimentation Command (CDEC). Michelson directed a
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...
(DARPA) program to show feasibility of a non-line-of-sight radio-acoustic sensor for bending radar signals using the Bragg principle to detect obstacle-masked targets (essentially making radars look around corners). He also directed a program to evaluate ground penetration radar for detection of buried natural gas leaks in urban utility systems. During 1981, Michelson directed a program for the automated noninvasive testing of captured foreign threat assets. Other radar test devices were also developed by Michelson for U.S. military test and evaluation purposes within the United States, including a program to develop a Ka-band Linear Electronics Countermeasure Source (KABLES) for use in testing U.S. Army millimeter wave assets.

During the mid-1990s, Michelson's research began to focus almost entirely on unmanned vehicle systems, especially those with the power of flight. Under various contracts to DARPA and the Air Force, and using internal research and development funds from the Georgia Tech Research Institute, his design team designed a micro air vehicle (MAV) known as the
entomopter
An Entomopter is an aircraft that flies using the wing-flapping aerodynamics of an insect. The word is derived from ''entomo'' (meaning insect: as in entomology) + ''pteron'' (meaning wing). Entomopters are type of ornithopter, which is the broad ...
. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts recognized the unique flight qualities of the entomopter and awarded Michelson two contracts to explore the feasibility of the entomopter for slow flight in Mars' lower atmosphere.
Honors and awards
Michelson is an Associate Fellow of the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecra ...
(AIAA), Senior Member of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines.
The IEEE has a corporate office ...
(IEEE), and a Full Member of the
Scientific Research Society of North America, Sigma Xi. During the 1990s he served as president and member of the Board of Directors of the
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (AUVSI) International organization. In 1998, Michelson received the AUVSI Pioneer Award, which is the highest level of recognition within the unmanned systems industry for technical contributions. Michelson is the recipient of the 2001
Pirelli Award for the diffusion of scientific culture, given by an international jury for the "best multimedia project coming from any educational institution in the world". For endeavors related to the
entomopter
An Entomopter is an aircraft that flies using the wing-flapping aerodynamics of an insect. The word is derived from ''entomo'' (meaning insect: as in entomology) + ''pteron'' (meaning wing). Entomopters are type of ornithopter, which is the broad ...
, he was also awarded the first €25,000 ''Top
Pirelli
Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is an Italian multinational tyre manufacturer based in the city of Milan, Italy. The company, which has been listed on the Borsa Italiana since 1922, is the 5th-largest tyre manufacturer, and is focused on the consumer pro ...
Prize''. In 2016, the International Aerial Robotics Competition and Michelson were recognized during the Georgia legislative session in the form of "Senate Resolution 1255” which recognized his effort in the development of the longest running aerial robotics competition in the world and moving forward the state of the art in aerial robotics on several occasions.
Media and literature
Michelson has been interviewed and quoted in
Business Week
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
,
Popular Mechanics
''Popular Mechanics'' (often abbreviated as ''PM'' or ''PopMech'') is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do it yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation an ...
,
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...
,
Chronicle of Higher Education
''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...
), and radio on
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
,
Armed Forces Radio
The American Forces Network (AFN) is a government television and radio broadcast service the United States Armed Forces provides to soldiers stationed or assigned overseas, and is headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland. AFN comprises two su ...
,
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
radio syndicate),
Scientific American Frontiers
''Scientific American Frontiers'' was an American science television program aired by PBS from 1990 to 2005. The show was a companion program to the ''Scientific American'' magazine, and primarily covered new technology and discoveries in science ...
,
[ ]Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience.
It init ...
, CNN
Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
, BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, and various ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
/CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
/NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
/Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
affiliates).
A technical biography of Michelson is the subject of episode 1008 of the television program ''Beyond Invention'', which chronicles a number of his research projects including UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...
research, the International Aerial Robotics Competition
The International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) is a university-based robotics competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 1991, collegiate teams with the backing of industry and government have fielded auto ...
, the entomopter-based Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
surveyor, and his work with automated coral propagation. Michelson is featured in an hour-long Discovery Science Channel program entitled ‘’Airbots’’.
Michelson has been quoted in news programming with regard to the International Aerial Robotics Competition
The International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) is a university-based robotics competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 1991, collegiate teams with the backing of industry and government have fielded auto ...
and the applications of the underlying technology to military and civilian spheres. As the use of robotic drone aircraft increased during the Gulf Wars, public interest in the subject was peaked and Michelson was featured in the NOVA
A nova ( novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white ...
episode "Spies that Fly" and the BBC special ''Seven Ways to Topple Saddam''. Michelson is the basis for the fictional character Michael C. Robertson in the novel ''Drone Games'' (2014) by Joel Narlock. In this work, Michael C. Robertson is the creator of the entomopter at the Georgia Technology Research Institute. This fictitious character's name is an anagram
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which ...
of Robert C. Michelson. Michelson's entomopter is also featured in another of Joel Narlock's novels, ''Target Acquired'' (2003).
Selected publications
*“Test and Evaluation for Fully Autonomous Micro Air Vehicles,” The ITEA Journal, December 2008, Volume 29, Number 4, ISSN 1054-0229 International Test and Evaluation Association, pp. 367–374 (winner of the 2009 International Test and Evaluation Association Publication Award)
*“Very small flying machines,” 2006 Yearbook of Science & Technology, McGraw-Hill, New York, , 2006, pp. 341–344
*“Novel Approaches to Miniature Flight Platforms,” Proceedings of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 218 Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering, Special Issue Paper 2004, pp. 363–373
*“Beyond Biologically Inspired Insect Flight,” von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics RTO/AVT Lecture Series on Low Reynolds Number Aerodynamics on Aircraft Including Applications in Emerging UAV Technology, Brussels Belgium, 24–28 November 2003
*“The Entomopter,” Neurotechnology for Biomimetic Robots, , The MIT Press, September 2002, pp. 481–509
*“Autonomous Vehicles,” Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 84, No. 8, August 1996, pp. 1147–1164
*“Feasibility of Applying Radio-Acoustic Techniques to Non Line-of-Sight Sensing,” AIAA Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 33, No. 2, March – April 1996, pp. 260–267
*“Tracking of the Florida Manatee,” ISA Transactions, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1982, pp. 79–85
References
External links
*
Full bio of Robert C. Michelson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michelson, Robert
1951 births
Living people
20th-century American inventors
21st-century American inventors
21st-century American engineers
American people of Norwegian descent
American roboticists
Engineering educators
Georgia Tech faculty
Georgia Tech alumni
Georgia Tech Research Institute people
Virginia Tech alumni
People associated with radar
Senior members of the IEEE
Amateur radio people
Educators from Atlanta