Ornithopter Drone Actually Looks Like a Bird

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By John Baichtal
Posted 2011/03/25 @ 12:27 pm
Category Fun & Games, Robotics

By the crazy German mad scientists at Festo.

SmartBird is an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. With SmartBird, Festo has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds – one of the oldest dreams of humankind.

This bionic technology-bearer, which is inspired by the herring gull, can start, fly and land autonomously – with no additional drive mechanism. Its wings not only beat up and down, but also twist at specific angles. This is made possible by an active articulated torsional drive unit, which in combination with a complex control system attains an unprecedented level of efficiency in flight operation. Festo has thus succeeded for the first time in creating an energy-efficient technical adaptation of this model from nature.

[Via Tinkernology]

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14 Responses to Ornithopter Drone Actually Looks Like a Bird

Anonymous on March 26th, 2011 at 6:26 am said:

Incredible work. Now all it needs is the ability to drop it’s waste on selected targets

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- Jeanne Lee on March 26th, 2011 at 6:45 am said:
  
  Gosh! This made me laugh like crazy
  
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Matthew Sawyer on March 26th, 2011 at 11:29 am said:

As far as I know about our current state of technology, the only practical use for the Ornithopter Drone appears to be domestic espionage. I predict rednecks will be shooting these things out of the sky, over marijuana crops in the Appalachians.

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Anonymous on March 26th, 2011 at 1:40 pm said:

omg have you heard the word…………..?

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John Lancia on March 26th, 2011 at 3:12 pm said:

As mentioned in Zero History.

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Jeremy on March 26th, 2011 at 7:09 pm said:

That is freaking awesome. Nothing else to be said about it.

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Jafar on March 27th, 2011 at 3:31 am said:

great job keep up the good work

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Mihirr Panchaal on March 27th, 2011 at 6:47 am said:

Brilliant.!!

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Anonymous on March 27th, 2011 at 8:46 am said:

Pretty interesting. Here are two uses I can think of:
1. old fashioned covert messaging. One of these could fly with a flock to go undetected to deliver a small payload safely.
2. I wonder if these can scare off birds that take up residence in large buildings with high ceilings, such as warehouses, big box stores and large supermarkets. kind of like the plastic owl idea but a whole lot more realistic.

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Jamie Mccabe on March 31st, 2011 at 4:35 am said:

i can see this thing being stolen by the military

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Anonymous on March 31st, 2011 at 10:13 am said:

I can see this thing being purchased legally by the military

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Charles Hutchinson on March 31st, 2011 at 8:26 pm said:

Yes, but will it lay eggs?

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Shea Liddicoat on April 1st, 2011 at 6:46 am said:

wow….flying robot bird

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Richard Earnshaw on April 3rd, 2011 at 10:01 am said:

I’d shoot it out of the sky if i saw its ass in my neighborhood.

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