Dan Flippo is on a mission to Mars.

He’s not preparing for space travel, but his research could help send a robot to Mars.

Work like Flippo’s, and other OU researchers on the leading edge of robotics engineering, is happening here on campus.

Flippo’s research focuses on testing the robotics that will be used in future missions to Mars.

“Right now, NASA doesn’t do a whole lot of testing on their wheels due to cost and time,” Flippo, mechanical engineering doctoral student, said in an e-mail. “My research deals with testing a single wheel and predicting how a full assembly Rover would do.”

The machine Flippo uses to test the wheels is a robot called Suspension and Wheel Evaluation and Experimentation Testbed, or SWEET. It’s a robot that was built in the Intelligent Research Lab, right here in Norman.

The IRL is run by David Miller, professor of intelligent systems in the School of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering.

“Since coming to OU, the IRL has built several robots for NASA and the space industry to do experiments for future missions to Mars and the Moon,” Miller said in an e-mail. “And to search for extraterrestrial life on Mars.”

But space technology research isn’t the only thing that goes on in the IRL.

Natalie Beams, mechanical engineering junior, is working on automated micro-helicopters.

“Basically, my system would allow someone to write computer programs to control the helicopter’s flight by sending signals from the computer to the helicopter,” she said in an e-mail.

The lab offers students an unbeatable opportunity for doing hands-on research with cutting edge technology.

“Students do the great majority of the work in the lab,” Miller said. “I set up some of the projects, and some of the projects originate with the students. Most of the detailed design, fabrication and programming is done by the undergraduate and graduate students in the IRL.”

Other labs around campus also do award-winning work on robotics projects. Kevin Bagnall, mechanical engineering senior, was part of a team last year that won first prize in a robotics competition.

“This was the second year in a row a team from OU has won that category,” Bagnall said in an e-mail.

Bagnall and his team, advised by Harold Stalford, a mechanical engineering professor, built a micro-robotic arm that could be useful in biomedicine.

Now, he is currently working on a micro-swimming device about the same scale as a human sperm using similar technology from last year’s design.

Bagnall said he thinks the future is bright for robotics, especially in the medical field.

“Micro-robots may one day be able to travel in the human body to conduct micro-surgeries or deliver drugs to specific areas,” Bagnall said.

“What may have seemed like mere science fiction 50 years ago doesn’t seem so crazy now, so who knows what the next 50 years will hold for robotics,” Beams said.