Notes from discussion (with Texron? - I have lost the context, but the point is a good one):

It has been proposed that UAVs have much potential for search and rescue applications, but the reality has been disappointing. Robin Murphy (researcher at Florida) -- conclusions from some study or talk by her in which noted that small helicopters that they tried to use in aftermath of Katrina had many practical problems:

• they are very vulnerable to wind gusts, even when they have landed on a rooftop.
• they are not "approachable" -- people do not want to approach them to try to "tell them" something. They are scary.
• very restricted mission life -- unless they can land (safely) and wait, they cannot hang around until people come to them

Science challenges:

interesting problem of motion planning with directional spines on a surface. related to other work in non-holonomic motion planning

go back to older papers by Dai, Gorb etc. and revisit insect spines.

vectored thrust ideas for maneuvering on surfaces

piezo motors? other muscle actuators, brakes, -- need extremely light actuators capable of at least dissipating substantial energy

combine spines with directional adhesion to stick on literally any surface

-- MarkCutkosky - 17 Oct 2008