How Bionic Wings Are Reinventing Drones

Mother nature is one of the best engineers, which is why us mere mortals are constantly trying to replicate the amazing things we find in nature. In this video, we will look at how the wings of birds, bugs, and bats are being replicated for drones. Although the complexity of these wings is greater than quadcopters, there are some useful benefits to gain!

Producer: Ryan Hughes
Research: Sian Buckley and Ryan Hughes
Editor: @aniokukade and Ryan Hughes
Music: Ryan Hughes

Key Sources:

Yuchen Xia et al “Design and Optimization of Bionic Wings Based on Leading-edge Angle for Flapping-Wing MAV

#drone #breakthrough #engineering

[UltimatePerfection]

Finally the CIA declassified the bird technology.

[PaulG.x]

Bat's patagium (flight membrane) is more that just stretched skin. It has muscle fibres that change the airfoil curvature and the surface has sensory hairs that detect airflow over the wing surface.
Bird wings are less adjustable, having only adjustable flight feathers, but are more robust

[LtSkEt]

I think Bio-mimicking wing designs are a great example or potential use case for a compliant mechanics application.

[fematrailer]

What's sad is that, in the realm of military applications, this implies that future anti-drone systems will likely have to contend with drones that are mostly indistinguishable from real birds. This means that whatever future countermeasures that will become necessary when dealing with small drones on the battlefield will likely include taking out birds as well, either on accident or as a matter of necessity

[darrellsaewhat]

“Awww how cute, a bird”

“What’s it holding?”

“A grenade?!?!?”

“Ohhh fu…..”

[tonywatson]

It seems like they are missing a trick here; a bird's/bat's wing not only moves up and down, the outer portion (from the wrist) moves forward on the downstroke, creating more wing speed and lift, and on the upstroke moves backward providing more thrust. OK, it would complicate the joint somewhat, but that's how animals generate such great efficiency vs the man-made models.

[drfill]

I own 3 birds and have had the chance to study their wings up close. The magic is not so much in the wing itself but the feathers. The robotic swift is good but the feathers were more uniform than in a bird. Most of the flight power in a wing is managed by just 4 primary feathers. Wing shape is managed by a larger number of secondary feathers and aerodynamics is handled by small feathers called coverts. Together these make an amazing dynamic and ridiculously light system.

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Birds can pull this off because they are able to sense the environment and other countless variables and intuitively adjust to everything at once. It's like walking but on a higher level of complexity, and we know how hard it is to get a robot to walk.

[jameswest]

I noticed, years ago, when I raised Hawks and Owls, that a bird's feathers were made to allow air to flow through the wing when the bird raises its wings by sort of twisting each feather and then, on the down swing the structure of each feather works kind of like a stop valve because of the way the feathers grow, with the trailing edge bumping into the leading edge of the feather behind. I noticed this because of the way the bird would groom its feathers. With its beak running, from the attachment point, along the trailing edge of the disarranged feather toward the outward tip of the wing. This would not only correct relation of the feather to leading edge of the following feather but would correct all the little "feather-lets" back into position. It was a thing of beauty.

[Phrancis]

Designers and engineers have always looked at nature for inspiration (biomimicry). Festo really has been on the cutting edge of this for many years.

[reaganharder]

So, the primary advantage of quadcopter drones is ultimately maneuverability. They can be quite stable in a hover and can quickly translate or rotate in any axis at any time. Most of these flapping wing drones require forward movement to stay airborne, which is quite a bit more like a fixed wing airplane, which we have had remote controlled versions of for a long time. Other than that swallow prototype, the only advantage I'm seeing over a classic fixed wing prop driven design is the ability to blend in with the environment, which is only really useful for surveillance and military applications

[mykul]

The Swift is amazing. Yet I must call out the engineers for all the models. I am astonished that you people can come up with mechanical representations of biological joints. Well done the lot of you. Advancing engineering technology well beyond my generation. Kudos

[bobfk]

This is really fascinating.
It's amazing such a complex mechanism evolved in nature.
Leonardo DaVinci was on the right track. He was just 500 years ahead of his time.

[Strawberryfs]

"bionic drones" Ornithopters. Why are we avoiding the word Ornithopter?

[Likexner]

After seeing the artificial spy hummingbird, i must apologize to the "birds arent real" folks. They are partly right. Some birds arent real.

[joshuafedorchuk]

I'm imagining passenger airplanes being dragon shaped, the wings flapping, the neck pumping during liftoff. What a fun idea 😊

[mrmr]

the pure durability of multi rotors is going to be hard to beat

[peetsnort]

I have wondering for years why submarines have not done this year's ago. The endless search for quiet propellers.
I have seen the dramatic improvement of kite foiling. It's astounding to actually watch them almost jesus like playing on water.

[luciusoppeln]

I did a school internship at Festo 5 years ago and it was a blast. Really an amazing and brilliant company that does so many cool things

[posermatt]

a while back there was a series and one of the books was named something like “Riptide”. one line in the book that i liked was “we started modeling our technology after the animals around us. after all they’d been doing it their whole lives” to explain the animal themed tech. however i think this is such an amazing idea and as a kid i thought this eventually would legit be the way.