High Performance Ornithopter Drone Is Quiet, Efficient, and SafeBy Evan Ackerman. Posted 03 Aug 2020 | 19:50 GMT
In Science Robotics last week, a group of roboticists from Singapore, Australia, China, and Taiwan described a new design for a flapping-wing robot that offers enough thrust and control authority to make stable transitions between aggressive flight modes—like flipping and diving—while also being able to efficiently glide and gently land. While still more complex than a quadrotor in both hardware and software, this ornithopter’s advantages might make it worthwhile.
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With the ability to take off, hover, glide, land softly, maneuver acrobatically, fly quietly, and interact with its environment in a way that’s not (immediately) catastrophic, flapping-wing drones easily offer enough advantages to keep them interesting. Now that ornithopters been shown to be even more efficient than rotorcraft, the researchers plan to focus on autonomy with the goal of moving their robot toward real-world usefulness.
The flight patterns of this ornithopter remind me a bit of what some pilots have described during UFO sightings. Which makes me wonder if the Air Force was experimenting with them back in the 50's and 60's.
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