craschworks

People of a certain age will probably remember “Bubo” the mechanical owl from the Clash of the Titans. I certainly wanted one when I was a kid. Now, Festo, the German automation giant, has developed an artificial flying seagull that’s almost as amazing as Bubo.

As described in this Fast Company article:

“The robot isn’t stuffed with helium, instead it relies on ultra-light materials like carbon-fiber and sensitive control electronics to give it a total mass of around 0.4 kilograms (33% less than an iPad 2).

The design secret behind its seemingly effortless flight is the fact its wings don’t simply beat up and down like many other ornithopter designs (the technical term for flying drones like this) but they also twist at “specific angles” much like a real gull’s wing will do–positioning the wing tips at the best angle for generating lift and spilling less waste air. An “active articulated torsional drive” is at the heart of it, aided by clever wing joints, accurate sensors for calculating the wing’s position in real time, and a low-weight motor that eats up just 25 watts. The bird even communicates its flight data back to the remote operator in real time, letting them adjust fine parameters like wing torsion in real time to achieve optimum flight.”

Such robots will likely come to place in increasingly large role in our lives–as toys, as extensions to our sensoriums and as companions.