Engineers are taking inspiration from natural resources to design the next generation of drones, or flying robots. Fourteen research teams have reported their latest experimental drones in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
Advancement in robotic technology will one day enable development of robots that can be used for everything from military surveillance to search and rescue, said engineers. One of the robots developed by engineers is with bird-like grasping appendages. Some are capable of forming a robot-swarm or flock. Natural abilities of birds, bats, insects and even flying snakes have inspired engineers to develop robots with the same abilities.
Aerial robotics expert Prof. David Lentink, from Stanford University in California, said drone technology is all set to witness significant changes in the way development of robots is approached because engineers have now begun to understand how evolution has solved many challenges.
Some advances reported in the journal showed how flying birds are able to fly effortlessly. By knowing how insects are able to stabilize themselves in turbulent air, researchers will derive the knowledge to decide drone designs of future.
A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has developed a raptor-like appendage for a drone, capable of mimicking birds to grasp objects at high speeds by swooping in.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina are focusing on unraveling the mysteries of insect, bird and bat flight. They tethered a moth inside a lab-based tornado chamber.
"I'm very excited about the future of this field. There are a lot of tasks that we can do with flying robots, such as sensing pollution, observing and protecting wildlife, or we could use them for search and rescue operations after tsunamis", said Dr. Mirko Kovac, Director of the aerial robotics laboratory at Imperial College, London.
via Science - Google News http://ift.tt/TIOWsA
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