page_title: Robert C. Michelson
section_title: Presence in popular media and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Robert C. Michelson / Presence in popular media and literature
caption_attribution_description: R.C. Michelson being interviewed by Alan Alda at the 1995 International Aerial Robotics Competition during the filming of Scientific American Frontiers.
context_page_description: Robert C. Michelson is an American engineer and academic widely known for inventing the entomopter, a biologically inspired flapping-winged aerial robot, and for having established the International Aerial Robotics Competition. He has received degrees in electrical engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Michelson's professional career began at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory where he worked on radar-based ocean surveillance systems. He later became a member of the research faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology. At the Georgia Tech Research Institute he was involved in full-time research, directing over 30 major research programs.
  He is the author of three U.S. patents and over 90 journal papers, book chapters and reports. Michelson also developed classes in avionics and taught in the School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology until his retirement from the University System of Georgia in 2004. 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.
context_section_description: Michelson has been widely interviewed and quoted in print (e.g., Business Week, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, Chronicle of Higher Education), radio (e.g., National Public Radio, Armed Forces Radio, American Association for the Advancement of Science radio syndicate), and on television (e.g., Scientific American Frontiers, Discovery Channel, CNN, BBC, and various ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox affiliates). Worldwide interest in robotics, and especially the robots of war, spawned a series of televised robotics programming about Michelson's work. A technical biography of Robert Michelson is the subject of episode 1008 of the television program Beyond Invention, which chronicles a number of his research projects including UAV research, the International Aerial Robotics Competition, the entomopter-based Mars surveyor, and his work with automated coral propagation. Michelson is featured in various television programs focused specifically on the International Aerial Robotics Competition, including an hour-long Discovery Science Channel program entitled Airbots. 
  Michelson has been often quoted in news programming with regard to the International Aerial Robotics Competition 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 began to be featured in series and specials such as the NOVA episode "Spies that Fly" and the BBC special Seven Ways to Topple Saddam. Because of the notoriety of his aerial robotic research, Michelson even became 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 of Robert C. Michelson, the actual inventor of the entomopter at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Michelson's entomopter is also featured in another of Joel Narlock's novels, Target Acquired (2003).
caption: Robert Michelson being interviewed by Alan Alda at the 1995 International Aerial Robotics Competition during the filming of Scientific American Frontiers.[70]
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