Researchers are turning stuffed birds into drones
#Researchers #turning #stuffed #birds #drones Welcome to InNewCL, here is the new story we have for you today:
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A reliable approach to creating a machine that can walk, walk, swim, or fly like an animal is to simply copy Mother Nature’s work. There’s a good reason the Boston Dynamics SPOT looks like a dog. But to create drones that fly, move, and even look like birds, researchers at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology are building them from real dead birds.
Those of us who have been online in the last decade may remember the work of Dutch artist Bart Jansen, who transformed his deceased stuffed cat into a furry quadrocopter in 2012. It was as disturbing a creation as it sounds, but that was more or less the point of its existence. As with most artworks, it sparked conversation.
New Mexico Tech researchers have a more practical reason for reviving deceased wildlife to create their flying ornithopters: They want to build a machine that can fly by flapping its wings like a bird. In a study recently presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ SciTech 2023 Forum, researchers highlight the advantages of using real bird parts over artificial materials engineered to behave like them. With their light bodies and flexible feathers, birds can easily outmaneuver even the most powerful aircraft we’ve ever built, and that includes compact drones that can zip adroitly through bowling alleys.
Dead birds processed into drones could spy on animals or humans
At least in their current form, the New Mexico Tech researchers’ drones aren’t nearly as agile in the air as the real thing. Birds use their muscles to flex and distort the shapes of their wings to perform amazing aerial maneuvers, while these drones simply flap their stiff wings up and down to stay aloft.
The bigger advantage of building an ornithopter from a deceased bird is the camouflage as it will look more like the real thing in the air and hopefully be more likely to be ignored. It may not excel in aerial combat, but a dead bird drone could potentially be a very useful spy tool, whether for military purposes or as a way for scientists to study and observe other wildlife while ensuring their behavior remains natural and undisturbed .
The use of feathers also gives birds incredible stealth abilities, allowing them to often take flight without making a sound. Compared to the noise of an electric motor with a spinning propeller, a dead bird drone with flapping feathered wings might be able to sneak up on a target quietly without scaring it off. Although, if you think about it more closely, this scenario actually sounds a lot scarier.
