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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:
www.avinc.com/innovative-solu...
www.festo.com/gb/en/e/about-f...
www.festo.com/gb/en/e/about-f...
Yuchen Xia et al “Design and Optimization of Bionic Wings Based on Leading-edge Angle for Flapping-Wing MAV
#drone #breakthrough #engineering
What future do you see for bionic drone wings? Also, upgrade your browsing with Opera at opr.as/Ziroth ! And don't miss out on Planet Wild's projects at planetwild.com/ziroth/dolphin, you can check out their latest documentary here too: www.planetwild.com/ziroth/8.
It looks like most use will be spy drones mimicing birds. For the other uses a drone with wings for gliding long distances should be similar in efficiency and much simpler to build. But this research is great for learning more about efficient gliding for the wing parts so maybe a bird/drone hybrid?
i really want to just pull up to my high school in a working ornithopter. screw your bikes. screw your carpools. I've got a f**king ORNITHOPTER!!!
What tech you are show, is tech that is 10 years old. In the military I saw things in the late 90s and early 00s that only came to public light in 2010s. When the hummingbird drone was shown. There were already insect size drones being used. That can land crawl to go through small holes and take off again. That was with old battery tech. I can't even imagine what they have now.
@@AndreVanKammen The dragonfly would probably be better for spying. Once they can get it down to the size of a real dragonfly, no outdoor conversation will be safe. In a few decades, they'll have it down to the size of a fly, with entirely passive recording and AI guidance so it will impossible to scan for.
An interesting idea is to use Pterrosaurs as template as they got the in nature most efficient design by using the same muscles for flight and ground movement making them able to be nimble in both modes. That is why they could grow to sizes no other flying animal body type have ever managed.
Finally the CIA declassified the bird technology.
All birds are drones. Birds aren't real.
Birds aren't real!
😂 I always knew it! Real birds like chicken or penguins don't fly!
@@shop970”Birds Aren’t Real” is a fake conspiracy movement meant to mock, satirize and parody people who are dumb enough to actually believe in conspiracy theories. They aren’t actually saying that it’s a conspiracy they believe but, rather mocking those who do.
pfff! You’re just part of the disinformation campaign against The Truth 😜
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
Thanks for adding that. I had no idea.
I think Boeing has a prototype flexible wing surface.
when we get hummingbird drone ??!?!??!??!?!?!?!?
Those Are Not Sensory Hairs, They're Vortex Generators. Thank You.
@@thewatcher5271 Wrong pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36790015/
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
hey hey this is 2023, you're just supposed to be excited for any new technology you can buy or be advertised to through, you're not supposed to notice that the very same technologies are used to enslave, kill, and oppress... that every step of "Progress" has resulted in more suffering, death, disease, and environmental destruction than we started with as hunter gatherers. "Progress" is literally incompatible with diversity, whether ethnic, cultural, or biological.
What i noticed as well is how quiet winged drones could be and how great of an impact it could have on operations. Just think of how far away you can hear a regular drone before you notice it and then imagine how close a winged one could get before you do so by sound. Kinda scary.
This is when targeting EMP blasts would be useful, as living organisms aren’t affected by EMPs. It would take out the drone without harming brids
Or just stop agreeing with our "leaders" when they want war? That'll solve at least one problem.
@@JackieOwl94 It's already done like this. You are not going to waste ammo and at worst show your location, by shooting when there are electronic countermeasures.
“Awww how cute, a bird” “What’s it holding?” “A grenade?!?!?” “Ohhh fu…..”
hahahaha, so good
Drone dropping granades has already went down, it lost most of it's effectiveness.
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.
I am wondering if the man made bones are lighter?
The Festo Bat does move its wings as you describe
@@PaulG.x Thanks, it wasn't obvious in the clip.
Are these designs more efficient then fixed wing aircrafts? They surely have an advantage with takeoff and landing requirements, but unless they are much more efficient then fixed wing designs I see them only in niche applications like espionage or military survailance where the stealthy look will play a big role.
@@axell964 I think one of the huge advantages is gliding. If you cut power to a drone's motors, it drops out of the sky. If a winged robot is high up enough, it can glide for long distances without using any energy due to updrafts. That's huge. Takes some battery to get up to altitude, and then takes no battery to glide for a mile, then a couple more flaps, and so on.
I think Bio-mimicking wing designs are a great example or potential use case for a compliant mechanics application.
I can see carbon fiber feathers, synthetic muscles, with aluminum alloy bones, fairly soon.
@@Giganfan2k1 That sounds awesome and really exciting!
Best stalkers will have them for sure 😅😂😂😂
@@toren9120 Scroll up and you'll see there's a whole video about it!
Bruce Wayne may already own the patent😅
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.
That's nice, a really dynamic system!
Owls also have different feather mechanics to other birds. Owls are the only bird that can take off silently but they had to ditch the waterproof festhers to achieve this. Don't know if you've seen a wet owl, water runs of ducks but owls look like the water has penetrated their souls.
@@not_glad The owl I raised didn't seem to get soaked from the rain. He just kind of adjusted his feathers, pulled his wings close and the rain rolled right off. He was a Great Horned Owl that I raised from a downy chick.
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
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.
It’s also worth keeping in mind how ideally the load on the wing is distributed or how ideally the wing is adapted to the loads.
@mikhailk3572 yes. You can in many ways think of the primary flight feathers as fingers. Think about how you can put your hand on an object and reactively control parts of it with an outstretched hand. In that way, a bird can use their wings to compensate for loads, changes in speed, wind gusts etc on a cm by cm basis. In this way a bird wing is nothing like any of the drone wings except for the flapping action
God is great. Macro-evolution proven impossible: Mind free to think ergo not a slave to physics ergo not physical ergo genetic evolution can never make a species or race thereof become an intellectually superior creature. No, racist atheist fanatics. We did not come from "subhuman blacks." Now bark like dogs because reason isn't your thing.
@@drfill9210that sound too intricate to mimick
@pocarisweet8336 you make a good point- I'm sure however, that you could calculate average pressure on each feather- about 4 will do- then have 1 small servo per feather (8 in all) that just pushes underperformed feathers harder... or less... perhaps the wrong combo needs to be learned in ai
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.
I'm not sure that flying IS a higher level of complexity than walking. Both are pretty darn complex. But working in the favor of walking robots is the fact that walking isn't terribly weight sensitive, so control systems can be big and bulky. I'm not sure effectively emulating bird or bat flight will be possible until we are able to effectively emulate muscles.
@@reaganharder1480 You walk in two dimensions. Left, right, forward and back. Add in the third dimension and yes, things can get real complex real quick. So IMHO flying is at a higher level of complexity. It's impressive to see the level of control these creators have built using nothing more than flapping wings. The future of drone flight is bright. Until then I'll just fly my two DJI drones. They're fun and my dog goes nutz when I fly them. Makes for great retarded dog videos. 😄
@@reaganharder1480 Muscles are actually darn inefficient when it comes to transfereing chemical energy to motion.
But there are sensors that can achieve the same while also calculating and adjusting with much more precision and speed than any brain can?
@@DaveBuildsThingsWalking does actually have to factor in the third dimension due to gravity and ground not always being flat, although flying still is more complex
the pure durability of multi rotors is going to be hard to beat
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
Outstanding look at basic to advanced bionic drones! Extremely fascinating and definitely part of our amazing future. The fact that you beautifully return to nature itself by linking to Planet Wild at the end couldn't be better. Bravo!
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
I think the benefit will be from humming bird style hovering which can then easily transition into forward flight. This bridges the gap between fixed wing and rotary drones, though it'll only be relevant until somebody develops a proper vtol fixed wing drone.
Black Shouldered kites hover - I have see this tonnes of times. I have watched Rainbow Lorikeets hover also.
Also, significantly quieter
@@matthewbadger8685 if said tech can be developed to work on a larger craft, then yes, it could definitely fill a middle ground. That said, I do wonder if it would still be simpler to make a prop driven system with a rotating wing and motor design similar to the Osprey airplane thing.
no, I don't think that DARPA funded these projects these kind of things
I'm imagining passenger airplanes being dragon shaped, the wings flapping, the neck pumping during liftoff. What a fun idea 😊
Might as well mount a flamethrower, for landing strip clearing purposes.
A better idea for molecular biology.
I don't know if Flapping is still more efficient at such high scales. We know it's definitely _possible_ due to the existence of Quetzalcoatlus, but at higher airspeed especially, I imagine flapping runs into the same issue as propellers when compared to "reactive thrust" That said, being able to adjust wing shape without mechanical hinges would be _incredible_
the idea of potential robotic grenade birds that blend in is terrifying, even just the reconnaissance idea is scary
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.
I highly recommend the biography by Walter Isaacson.
I agree
It took nature hundreds of millions years to perfect this design :D quite a bit of time if you ask me!
@@pitrek121g it is amazing at that I must say.
the fact that most of the "adaptations" need multiple mutations that are useless without the others proves they didnt evolve but rather were designed.
Bionic-birds is such an inelegant collection of syllables - there is an already extant word: ornithopter.
I agree. But ornithopter has the connotation of a human powered vehicle. Maybe ornithopter drone? Drone thopter?
NOPE - go check it on GOOGLE or any other online search engine. An ornithopter is defined as "ANY mechanical device that flies by flapping its wings" and NOT limited to human power. It is the action not the drive-train that operates the mechanism of the wings.
Flappy things?
Designers and engineers have always looked at nature for inspiration (biomimicry). Festo really has been on the cutting edge of this for many years.
For utility purposes, I think that tilt-rotors are a more likely evolution from current multi-rotor drones. If you need both lift capacity and efficiency in a vehicle with vertical take-off and hover capability, that's probably the best way to go.
When I was a child some 30 years ago or so, my grandfather had two wind-up mechanical birds that flew. This video reminded me of that.
After seeing the artificial spy hummingbird, i must apologize to the "birds arent real" folks. They are partly right. Some birds arent real.
Well, interesting. During my days as a hang glider pilot, I designed, built, and lost many 'sacrificial victims to the wind gods'. The problems with ornithopters still seems to be mechanical efficiency. Lighter ones are possible due to new building materials, but the complicated mechanics seem to limit their practicality. It will be interesting to see how this progresses....
The next step, or the step after that, is to mimic bird/bat joints tendons & muscles.
Some amazing engineering here! Not sure wings will ever replace prop drones though, they just don’t have the lift capacity. I’d imagine nature has found the limit of the (flapping) wing, so don’t see much improvement being made mechanically. Their big advantage I guess is their potential for stealth, no ones going to take much notice of a bird circling overhead, and if they could make them land convincingly they’d be the perfect spy device.
For long range use at low speed flapping wings have a better theoretical maximum efficiency than a prop. That's because they move more air slower to create their reactive force, meaning less energy is needed for the kinetic energy of the reaction air
Maybe drones will have both wings and a prop in the future and use whichever makes the most sense for their path.
only one question: how is the wear/maintenance on this mode of motion as compared to typical rotors? this question was particularly inspired by the hummingbirds, for which i can only imagine what a maintenance nightmare the complexity makes
We've learned a lot about compliant mechanisms since 2011, there is a lot of room for improvement. Even in the video it was mentioned that there were still improvements to be made to that mechanism.
Biological systems are self-repairing.. there's still a way to go for mechanical systems.
@@tohaasonThis is easily one of the more valuable traits inherent to cellular tissue structure, over a single monolithic piece or assemblage of such pieces.
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.
That is Outstanding. Best video I've seen today!
Ornithopters imitate birds in the same way as a kazoo imitates a symphony.
*I mounted a .15CC Nitro-methane engine on my DJI Air 3 and now it has 45 mile range (11 miles out) and has a speed of 75 MPH with a 150ML fuel tank. The high forward speed doubles the flight time to 95 minuets since LIFT is doubled and the propellers only need 15% of max-power to fly level since they start acting like wings at high speeds. Take-off can be a bit scary.*
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks so much.
You have great editing skills. I enjoyed watching you trying to fly your "bird" for the first time. Reminded me of baby birds just learning to fly.
This looks like a great application for compliant mechanisms.
About 10 years ago, i saw a gigantic black UFO in the night that i could only describe as a giant mechanical bird. It had a spotlight that shined down and it shut off as soon as i saw it , it glided silently over the road, i saw it flap one time as it glided away. This thing was the size a house!
This is truly amazing.❤
I remember many years ago when Festo showed a video of the first robotic flying seagull. I was totally blown away. What's really missing now is fully artificial muscle so that we can get something which is way better than motors and batteries.
An interesting thing to me about flock flying is it might be able to defray the payload problem. Rather than putting everything on one drone, maybe one carries a camera suite, one high fidelity navigation equipment, and one high power transmitter. Could be cool, and also allow flocks with graceful failure and high redundancy.
Imagine swarms of these bionic wing drones targeting jet engine intakes of an aircraft for AA.
Thanks Tom! Great work!
wow this is amazing infomation!!!
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.
To be fair, you don't really know what the latest propeller designs are like since they are classified.
@@CheapSushiSo you're just going to overlook the idea that this video has *nothing* to do with subs... And that subs can't even *use* wings 🙄
@@MadScientist267think of a stingray
@@MadScientist267 Flippers in marine animals are basically analogous to wings, and similarly you can compare submarines to aircraft in some respects.
Having moving mechanized joints would be highly susceptible to structural collapse at such pressures. And you would need to have a flexible skin over the whole sub that can withstand the pressures and temperatures of the deep ocean in order to keep the joints sealed.
The trouble with wing based drones is the large number of very small moving parts, compared to an electric motor spinning a propeller.
A motor definitely has more moving parts in the bearings alone. The difference is bearing technology is WAY more advanced than lever technology. Nearly all machines have a spinning mechanism (think cars) but very few machines rely on a lever as their primary force application. Things like claw machines and construction vehicles come to mind but even these machines have more technology in their tracks and wheels than their cranes. If we focused on it, the moving parts in a wing could be simple as if not more simple than current bearing technology
I think they way more ahead than we think. This is absolutely brilliant.
Can't wait to go see it.
So where can we get one of those little flappy drone kits you were trying? that looked fun!
Just an FYI: My father brought a spring-powered “robot” bird back from Europe in the sixties, and it flew perfectly. It flew by flapping its flexible wings - just like a real bird. This was 55 years ago.
I'm sure there are many people who would appreciate further information on this
I'm one of such people
Look up Schylling Tim Bird. Came out in the 70s. My dad also brought one home for me from europe but probably in the early 90's.
I remember having one of them. They flew well, but had zero control.
The keyword for this is "Ornithopter" and they are the non controllable , non electric, version of the device Ryan flies in the video.
Very good video. I got lots to learn.
I cannot overstate how smart it was to show the split-screen of your drone assembly along with your sponsor's ad at the same time.
i just use sponsorblock
I see a very bright future for bionic wings, I'm a little biased though as I study Biomimetics. It's a natural progression though as nature is the universe greatest library and it's only our lack of capability that stops us from utilising a vast array of lovely efficient solutions (often par excellence), that nature has worked out already. ML will make the biggest difference in the coming years in bridging between the complexity of nature and human engineering, I'm really looking forward to seeing what pops up in the next decade!
Yeah a bright future for the military. Enjoy that fat MIC paycheck.
That's funny because my first thought for this type of wing was for environmental monitoring, they would be great for not disturbing animals, of course also more likely to get preyed on haha
Yeah I work in film and games :) the game I'm developing actually has a lot of Biomimetics in it, it's called Aten7
The future is now, it's always been. kzhead.info/channel/PLGeMg5GzLGWaXZWhR9HSMdHbZQcQ4xDfJ.html&si=e_epjVva97c0hL0K
I see actually very few commercial applications for such ways of flying. Outside of military survailance and spying there is not really a need or even advantage. Fixed wing systems will always be more efficient and way less complex to build and maintain. Rotor based drones like quadcopers will always have a higher maneuverability, can easily set on a stable hovering position and are also much less complex. Both systems can also be upscaled much more easy then flex winged designs. Beside being cool, their main advantage is the ability to blend into the natural environment very easily and convincingly.
It's my understanding that rotating wheels, or propellers have not evolved in nature because of the bloodflow problem. If a propeller spins freely, separate from the body of the animal, then how do you get blood through that rotating joint? I was under the impression that propellers are more optimal than any flapping wing, since they don't have to change speed, and thus their momentum doesn't come into play (not quite true for current quadcopters, but for fixed wing planes, this is largely true). If nature could have designed animals with propellers, it probably would have
Drones with propellers are inefficient because they don't have wings. What's magical about birds is that they can climb, glide, and dive by altering the shape of their wings. Current flying machines are great at doing one of those things, but cannot do all of them. I don't think it's fair to say that wings are more efficient, they are just more versatile. We are trying to replicate wings so that we don't have to choose between a helicopter or a glider when we go flying.
@@puffinjuice i wasn't trying to compare a quadcopter drone to a mechanical flying bird, i was trying to compare a propeller to a flapping wing. The propeller is more efficient. On a gliding plane, and a gliding bird, you'll see increased efficiency of the propulsion. On a hovering bird vs a hovering drone, i'm not really sure, but as stated above, the advantage of a constantly rotating wing (propeller blade) is that you don't need to change angle or speed within the cycle. They are both wings, one is simple in constant motion, while the other needs to stop and start, and changes direction through sub-optimal angles of attach, and fight the momentum of the wing itself. if you want to argue further, lets hold it to a comparison of a constant speed wing, vs a changing speed wing. my point is also only about efficiency, not about agility or flexibility. You can get increased flexibility with rotating wings/propellors, but at the cost of needing to moderate either the blade pitch, or speed of a fixed pitch propeller.
Bird way of flying will always be less efficient then fixed winged aircraft. Bird wings will always have less maneuverability and hovering stability then copters. They are good at being halfway decent at several things at the same time thou. I do not think they will get an application outside of military and spying where their natural looking movements offer great stealth.
Propellers can’t glide, you would run out of energy within a few hours. Modern jets can float, glide, and thrust.
@@AYVYN folding propellers glide. Additionally, unpowered fixed propellers can "windmill" to reduce drag a little. Additionally (again), variable pitch propellers can adjust their angle to be a lower drag angle of attack when unpowered. Lastly, How would a propeller "run out of energy" but a flapping wing that can "thrust" not? You do understand that a flapping wing also requires energy, right? "Thrust" cannot come from nowhere. My whole point is that propellers are MORE energy efficient than flapping wings, and thus, with a given energy value, a propeller will go further. You don't get free energy from flapping wings.
It's incredible to me how far we have come technology wise yet nature can still teach us a thing or two.
Type 1 myself. Stick on, 2 week, monitors are really convenient and com with phone. Little is perfect! Loved the vid. Just subscribed.
So birds aren't real after all?
Like everything else, the truth is a paradox.
have you ever seen a baby pigeon?
@@cvspvrno your so right man I’ve never ever ever ever seen any baby birds this is such a massive discovery 😮😮😮😮
Can they be modified to drop grenades in war?
I would bet my bottom dollar that that's why the research money is so plentiful
They already do. I'm never parking under a tree again.
@@peetsnort Recon
No chance - they barely keep themself off the ground, payload capacity is Nil.
@@peetsnort No, their main military value will be surveilance, not bombing.
The mental flashbang of this man just appearing in the Chancellors building 😂
All that is missing is the vortices that feathers make. The Swift drone looks more like a swallow, swifts beat their wings alternately. Great video, thanks for posting!
"bionic drones" Ornithopters. Why are we avoiding the word Ornithopter?
0 mana 0/2 flying!
Pteradons had a flight system kinda similar to bats (from what I understand), and apparently it was very efficient compared to birbs. Also worth noting birb wings are also hands, the bones in them are from elongated fingers, you can see the development from the arms and hands of dromaeosaur dinosaurs into wings.
da birbs
It is not possible that any dinosaur became a bird. Jesus Christ made everything after its kind.
@@earlysda its a fact, cope with it.
@@VirshoVirsho, "Evolution hasn't been observed while it's happening." . If that statement is true (and it is), it means Evolution fails the scientific method.
I remember doing a little bit of undergrad research on the aerodynamic characteristics of wings with flexible membranes, like the bat wings Pretty interesting
Amazing video! I love these robot birds! Also I recently learned that bats have a higher flight speed than most birds, so that could be a good reason to focus on bat flight mechanics over others.
I think the biggest testament to how brilliant the bat's wing is that a single family of animals has inspired some of our most prominent myths, including dragons and demons.
Myths? Lol
@@CosmicCricetinae Yes, there are too many stories and paintings and carvings of dragons for them all to be imaginary. Some of them look just like dinosaurs, oddly enough.
Dragons were real and demons still are. Though the depictions of both are symbolic, not accurate.
@@gracefoolgrace, you need to check out the Ica Stones.
If they wanna make larger drones based on animals, they could take inspiration from pterosaurs. Though we're not certain how exactly they flew, we're pretty sure that some species could grow upwards of 10m in wingspan. They had efficient bauplans. Surely they had to have been doing something right.
They had hollow bones, couldn't carry any extra weight, and probably had to throw themselves into flight and couldn't just take off. We don't have the materials and we never will. Nature found the best answer and until we can bio engineer something similar it will be a pipe dream.
Didn’t they fly similar to bats? They have a similar wing structure? Bats just don’t have hollow bones so they can’t get as large.
@@greasher926i'm not sure i've seen an actual like demonstration of what their flight looks like. their takeoff is likely similar though
I'd love to see a discussion that includes historical attempts by humans to fly by mimicking birds. Other than the problem of weight, how close were they and how did their designs compare to that of these new drones? btw, my cat would love that thing
Dear autor you are so cool, i cant stop watching your channel!
Psssss! You shouldn't reveal HOW birds aren't real. It's supposed to be a secret.
Humans aren’t smart enough to invent nature, just repurpose its designs.
Use their proper name: They are called ornithopters!
Batman is now going to have a literal BatDrone
Great vid!
Just further proof that birds aren't real.
Neither are people. . .experimental for sure.
Yeah, I've been researching the topic of ornitopters a few years back. Turns out for now propellers are almost always the most effective (and have less moving parts). The biggest flying (dinosaur, probably only gliding tho) animal could weigh as much as 250 kg! - right now the biggest is albatros I think. Theoretically.. if you could build something that weighs roughly 170kg.. add a human.. and you're riding a dragon my friend. I was planning to get back to the idea when we'll have sum more progress in technology. Especially lighter materials with the same or bigger strength
Condor...
Something I'd hope to hear more about is the ability for soaring birds to detect and utilize air columns - rising heat allows such birds to gain elevation with minimal effort turning in circles to remain in the column. I think this could be combined with these bionic wing drones through specialized sensors and good software to estimate and leverage rising columns of heat.
I hope that he had talked about the bionic wings during the video. However, if had helped a lot on my project and keep up the good work!
I had the Flytech flying dragonfly model from WowWee. It had a steep learning curve, but one thing I noticed was that every time I took it outside, the birds would attack it....even though it was bigger than most of the birds around.....
Hey Ziroth, great video on this one. Where can I get the drone you used in it? Thanks!
Flapping propulsion is cool and all but probably won't scale up very well. I'd like to see research on: -Tip feathers creating roll with proverse yaw, and yaw management for craft without vertical tails like birds. -Changing the area of the tail to help control pitch. -Reconfigure for best glide, min sink and extreme stall conditions using tip and tail feathers. -Eddy flaps and (autostable?) tip feathers for eVTOL.
Well done Ziroth! By trying to copy nature we re only more amazed about what nature is able to do! You addressed the issue of running-time. 3 hours max. Again: nature is still sooo much better. Amazing, no?
Ok, this is coolest thing I’ve seen in like 30 years.
Very interesting I have always asked myself what makes the birds fly long distance without any up and down of their wings Infact what proell them forward motions when their wings at rest in stretched position
When I was around 10, I got a gift of a wind-up plastic bird this was about 1977. It was made in France had thick round rubber band for power and an extremely simple mechanism. The wings were one plastic beam on the leading edge and a mylar airfoil with a L -x- W ratio of approximately 2.8. The membrane was not taught, but had slack on the trailing edge, with one rearward attachment point 2/3 of the way out from the body. I don't remember the company or product name, but I believe it's been around for quite some time. When fully wound it would fly for a surprising amount of time, maybe 30 seconds. Quite controllable flight pattern and elevation control because of a ball joint mounted tail of similar design. It would fly perfectly at altitude and moderate speed in circles of any diameter or straight depending on tail pitch and yaw.
I think it would be much easier and more efficient to make sturdy wings like a plane and just use the propeller at the front. And upgraded version of this could be a VTOL mechanic like MV-22 Osprey or something but perhaps with only one propeller.
Very interesting, thank you for sharing. I have question, which kit and from where did you buy it?
00:00 🛸 Drones today have limitations, spurring interest in bionic wings for enhanced maneuverability and efficiency. 01:21 🦅 Real birds' wing movements - folding, twisting, bending - inspire bionic drone designs, enabling energy efficiency and versatile flight control. 02:30 🦇 Bats' flight, resembling swimming, influences drone wings; long fingers and wing control offer exceptional maneuverability. 03:55 🚁 Bionic drone assembly involves converting motor rotation into wing flapping motion for flight; initial test flights exhibit agility and directional changes. 05:47 🦇 Bionic flying fox by Festo showcases lightweight, flexible wings, improving performance through motion capture and machine learning for autonomous flight. 07:09 🌐 Nano air vehicles, like the hummingbird-inspired drone, demonstrate intricate flight capabilities for surveillance and research, with ongoing efforts to enhance stability and silence. 08:57 🛠 Research focuses on wing angle optimization and joint elasticity to boost efficiency, stability, and payload capacity in bionic drones. 09:53 🐦 Bionic Swift's design mimics bird plumage for superior energy efficiency, precise flight control, and coordinated swarm behavior via GPS and communication technology. 10:49 🕊 Bionic birds demonstrate increasing flight durations, showcasing potential advancements in drone technology, especially when combined with AI for autonomous flight correction. 11:29 🔬 Bionic wings hold promise for future drone development, with military interest and ongoing advancements in maneuverability and flight capabilities.
landing is a whole set of techniques and skills
I'm surprised insects were not mentioned. The epitome of flight is the dragonfly. Which is why it has the highest hunting success rate of 95%.
agreed: the dragonfly is so cool, it gives me goosebumps
If the percentage of energy efficiency was also mentioned in the video that would have been great. I think this would be more useful only in surveillance scenarios and definitely would give an entry into toy market.
It's amazing how robotic techology went so far, opening up so many possibilities
War is lucrative
Great video!
Da Vinci made one of these. Really insane seeing these become remote controlled. I had a rubber band powered one as a kid.
This is so cool. Would love to this implement with large pterosaurs like Hatzegopteryx or Quetzalcoatlus. They are more energy efficient than birds and bats. And they can also get like 3 times bigger than either of them ( like the size of a giraffe ), which would be a sight to see in real life.
It's off putting how chill this guy is over more surveillance. Off putting indeed.
I love the 1800s wing flapping machines , they were hilarious,, were seemingly going full circle.
great video
Another cool idea for yours, diesel drones.
In the future, it would be interesting to see this technology applied to ultralights.
Ah yes, the militaries' answer to how can we make drones even more uncanny to the public, add bat wings.
Wowwee released a deagonfly robot back in 2007. It was hard to fly, but once you got the hang of it you could have some fun
This is GREAT! When will we be reinventing ultralight aircraft?
I witnessed some of the first flights of the world's first R/C orthinopter at Wallaby Ranch in the early 2000's.
amazing
To get more lift maybe there could be wings based on pterosaurs, which catapulted themselves into the air using all 4 limbs, which is what allowed them to grow so big