A robotic bird with flapping wings covered in real feathers has flown for the first time. It could be used to provide insights into how real birds fly or to create stealthy drones that look like wildlife.
Researchers at Guangxi University in China and Chinese firm Bee-eater Technology built a carbon fibre skeleton linked with aluminium joints and some 3D-printed plastic parts. It was covered in a thin foam and then layered with real goose feathers in a pattern that mimicked that on a real bird.
Advertisement
An electric motor powered the flapping wings, using a gearbox to reduce the output speed by 48 times. This allowed the robot to flap more like a large bird of prey and not rapidly, like a hummingbird. The tail pivots vertically and horizontally, providing much the same function as the tail flaps, known as the elevators, and rudder of an aeroplane. The robot鈥檚 wings can also rotate slightly around the axis of the wingspan to create pitch.
The ornithopter 鈥� as an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings is known 鈥� was based on the traits of a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the finished machine had a wingspan of 195 centimetres. Whereas a golden eagle can weigh anywhere from about 2.7 to 6.8 kilograms, this robot weighs just 667 grams.
In tests, it successfully took off, flew for slightly more than a minute and landed safely.
Robots with fixed wings that are driven by propellers and covered with feathers have been created before. Researchers have also experimented with flying robots with flapping wings and smooth coverings. But this is believed to be the first time a feather-covered ornithopter has been proven airworthy.
Yu Cai at Guangxi University says that a realistic bird robot could have applications where an operator wants to blend in and hide, though video footage suggests the robot鈥檚 motor is quite loud. The US military has previously funded research on flapping-wing drones that can be stealthier than those using rotors.
But Cai believes it may also reveal more about the way real birds fly: 鈥淎 lot of biomimetic researchers like this kind of robot as a research platform. And some other aerodynamic physicists use them as a model to analyse vortex phenomena鈥�, which come into play during flight.
搁别蹿别谤别苍肠别:听
