Bio-mimicry seems to be the order of the day in robotics as yet another robot is designed based on a living design. At the TED Global 2011 in Scotland it was the German company Festo that wowed audiences with a flying robot seagull.
A robot that flies like a bird | Markus Fischer
The designer of the SmartBird Markus Fischer said that they tried to mimic nature. The robot is based on a herring gull. As per the company the bird is made of carbon fiber and polyurethane foam. It weighs about one pound and has a wingspan of 6.5 feet. the bird can 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.
The robotic bird has a microcontroller, four servo drives and a lithium polymer battery. The wings of the bird move in a split stage helical transmission and the position of the wings is monitored by sensors that relay the information to ground operators using a radio link.
At the Edinburgh International Conference Centre the audience clapped when the gull was hand-launched, tentatively flapping its wings and then beating the air to circle above the auditorium. It received a standing ovation and had to deliver a second demonstration.
Markus Fischer said in his presentation that it was a dream of mankind to fly like a bird. He hand cranked the Smart Bird model to show how it flapped its wings during his presentation. He said the company built it to learn about air flow phenomena and lightweight, energy-efficient models.