Artificial Feathers Let This Robotic Bird Fly With Incredible Agility

Over the years , Festo , a German automation company with a preference for robot , has designed infinite Mother Nature - inspired automatons thatswim , hop , andflylike their real - human beings opposite number . That includes robotic birds , which have now been upgraded with fake plume that allow the robots to soar through the air with the same maneuverability and agility as the material thing .

Nine year ago , Festo unwrap arobotic seagullwith wings that could bend and flap like the wing on the material - life terror of the beach . The automatic bird was capable to remain aloft by just beat its wings without the need for an additional propeller or other thrust mechanics to produce forward-moving momentum . It could also direct by adjusting the slant of its tail , and while it was an engineering marvel , its in - melodic phrase maneuverability was special .

The later edition of Festo ’s robotic bird , BionicSwift , is a completely unlike tale . For newbie , it ’s much diminished , weighing in at just 42 gm while still carrying a stamp battery that ’s good for about seven minute of escape sentence . One electric motor powers the flap motion of the robot ’s wings , while two others make adaptation to the dame ’s artificial foam feathers to perform realistic in - flight maneuvers .

Photo: Festo

As with a real fowl , when the wings are moving downwards , the overlap feathers form a undivided surface to maximize the amount of power being generated to produce lift . When the wings are moving up , the feathers winnow out to increase air flow rate which reduced the amount of vitality demand for that motion , improving stamp battery living . In thevideoFesto shared onYouTube , the robot bird is also seen perform a diving manoeuvre where it graciously falls out of the sky to nibble up upper before spreading its fender and climbing once again . It ’s eerily lifelike .

Festo has even managed to recreate a bird ’s weird ability to flee half mode around the world while migrate without fall back their way by using built - in GPS so the robot knows where it is at all times . But with just seven transactions of flight time , the caller does n’t have to worry about these escaping to South America when the weather gets cold .

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Gif: Festo