Soon-Jo Chung could be described as the Batman of aerospace engineering. Though he does not usually don a black, spandex suit or drive a tricked-out car, he is developing a new technology that draws from bats and may help save lives.

Chung, a new aerospace engineering professor at the University, is working towards building a plane that can mimic the natural flight of bats.

“Bats are one of nature’s best natural flyers,” Chung said. “They can turn 180 degrees and fly with broken wings. The objective of the research is to mimic the ‘flapping-flying’ motion.”

Though Chung said much work is already being done in ‘flapping-flying’ research, including on bats’ multi-jointed wings, he said his research is different. He also hopes to build a plane that can “fly without human intervention.”

The specific type of plane Chung is working towards building is called a micro aerial vehicle (MAV) — “micro” referring to the small size and “aerial vehicle” meaning a plane.

“The idea of MAVs is that they are unmanned systems that are smaller aircrafts,” said David Bates, the executive officer of air vehicles at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Chung’s funding, a $300,000 Young Investigators Research Grant, is a program given through the Air Force.

“MAVs could be used in urban environments for surveillance and are cost-effective,” Bates said, “but they can be used for a wide range of non-millitary things as well.”

Even though the grant is through the military, Chung explained the research could be useful for submarines, automobiles or many other vehicles.

“It’s purely scientific research,” he said. “The overall goal is advancing the knowledge of technology.”

At this time, Chung has engineered both a helicopter that can independently follow a path and a robotic bat. But he said fully completing his project could still be more than 20 years from now.

“There are a lot of challenges,” Chung said. “For one, airplanes don’t have eyes and there is only so much GPS can do. It also has to be very small and self-contained. Right now it’s kind of overwhelming.”

Chung said he has been working on the project for about a year. He began his research when he was a professor at Iowa State University and brought the project with him when he began as a professor at Illinois this fall.

Along with his project, Chung also brought research assistant Michael Dorothy from Iowa.

Dorothy, currently a University aerospace engineering graduate student, assisted Chung with the project during his senior year after having Chung as a professor.

“All through undergrad, I knew I wanted to go to graduate school,” Dorothy said. “They always say you go to grad school for a project and I didn’t see any others as potentially impactful.”

Dorothy said he is excited for the potential of the research.

“Besides the sheer cool factor, it feels like we are making actual progress,” he said.

Chung first became interested in the research while he was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“At MIT I was working on spacecraft research for my graduate degree,” Chung said, “and I wanted a project that I could apply neurobiologically controlled research.”

He said neurobiological control is simply the way in which animals instinctively fly, and an area he is fascinated with.

“The way bats fly is just beautiful,” he said. “It’s like how we walk. It’s so intricate but we don’t even think about it.”