The twenty-first century might be called the Multifunctional Materials Age. The inspiration for multifunctional materials comes from nature, and therefore these are often referred to as bio-inspired materials. Bio-inspired materials encompass smart materials and structures, multifunctional materials, and nano-structured materials. This is a dawn of revolutionary materials that may provide a quantum jump" in performance and multi-capability. This book focuses on smart materials, structures, and systems, which are also referred to as intelligent, adaptive, active, sensory, and metamorphic. The...

This paper reviews some of the important technical barriers that must be overcome to achieve truly efficient flying adaptive micro air vehicles (MAVs). As defined by the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA), MAVs are vehicles with no length dimension greater than 6 inches. These vehicles typically weigh less than 100 grams and some can fly for approximately 30 minutes. Over the past decade significant progress has been made in developing these small-scale mechanical flying machines. However, there is still much work to be done if these vehicles are to approach the efficiency and...