All Articles Tagged As: flight

An unmanned aerial vehicle that uses wind power like a bird -- pure genius (12/16/2011)

Queensland University of Technology Ph.D. student Wesam Al Sabban is a genius and has the medal to prove it!The engineering student received the accolade for his work on the design of an unmanned aerial vehicle that would be powered by the sun and wind. ...> Full Article

Tiny flying machines inspired by nature will revolutionize surveillance work (7/31/2011)

Tiny aerial vehicles are being developed with innovative flapping wings based on those of real-life insects.Incorporating micro-cameras, these revolutionary insect-size vehicles will be suitable for many different purposes ranging from helping in emergency situations considered too dangerous for people to enter, to covert military surveillance missions. ...> Full Article

Auto-pilots need a birds-eye view (7/7/2011)

New research on how birds can fly so quickly and accurately through dense forests may lead to new developments in robotics and auto-pilots. Scientists from Harvard University trained pigeons to fly through an artificial forest with a tiny camera attached to their heads, literally giving a birds-eye view. This research is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Main Meeting on July 1. ...> Full Article

Flapping micro air vehicles inspired by swifts (7/6/2011)

A new design of micro air vehicle (MAV) will be able to flap, glide and hover. Researchers have been inspired by birds to design a MAV that combines flapping wings, which will allow it to fly at slow speeds and hover, with the ability to glide, ensuring good quality images from any on-board camera. This work will be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow on July 2, 2011. ...> Full Article

Engineers study hybrid systems to design robust unmanned vehicles (2/3/2011)

University of Arizona aerospace and mechanical engineers are studying bird and bee flight to develop unmanned vehicles that stay aloft longer and cope with sudden and severe changes in airflow. ...> Full Article

When bird meets machine, bioinspired flight (11/25/2010)

Working at a crossroad between biology and engineering, scientists have modeled and are now mimicking the ingenious natural design of falling geckos, gliding snakes, cruising seagulls, flapping insects and floating maple seeds to improve the design of air vehicles. ...> Full Article

How hummingbirds fight the wind (11/24/2010)

Hummingbirds rank among the world's most accomplished hovering animals, but how do they manage it in gusty winds? A team of researchers has built a robotic hummingbird wing to discover the answer, which they describe today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, Calif. ...> Full Article

Flexible wings driven by simple oscillation may be viable for efficient micro air vehicles (11/23/2010)

To avoid some of the design challenges involved in creating micro-scale air vehicles that mimic the flapping of winged insects or birds, Georgia Tech researchers propose using flexible wings that are driven by a simple sinusoidal flapping motion. ...> Full Article

Should airplanes look like birds? (11/22/2010)

Airplanes do not look much like birds, but should they? This question is exactly what a pair of engineers in California and South Africa inadvertently answered recently in experiments they describe today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, Calif. ...> Full Article

UW leading $7.5 million study of animal flight and aerial vehicles (10/1/2010)

The University of Washington is leading a five-year, $7.5 million project to study birds, insects and bats in order to develop autonomous aerial vehicles that can adapt to obstacles and fly in unpredictable conditions. ...> Full Article

Flying fish glide as well as birds (9/12/2010)

How well do flying fish fly? This is the question that puzzled Haecheon Choi from Seoul National University, Korea. Measuring aerodynamic forces on dried darkedged-wing flying fish in a wind tunnel, Choi and Hyungmin Park discovered that flying fish glide better than insects and as well as birds. The fish also derive an aerodynamic advantage from gliding close to the water's surface to cover distances as great as 400 meters. ...> Full Article

Shark skin for airplanes, ships and wind energy plants (5/24/2010)

To lower the fuel consumption of airplanes and ships, it is necessary to reduce their flow resistance, or drag. An innovative paint system makes this possible. This not only lowers costs, it also reduces CO2 emissions. ...> Full Article

Artificial butterfly in flight and filmed (5/21/2010)

A group of Japanese researchers, who publish their findings today Thursday, May 20, in IOP Publishing's Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, have succeeded in building a fully functional replica model -- an ornithopter -- of a swallowtail butterfly, and they have filmed their model butterfly flying. ...> Full Article

Secrets of insect flight revealed (9/19/2009)

Researchers are one step closer to creating a micro-aircraft that flies with the maneuverability and energy efficiency of an insect after decoding the aerodynamic secrets of insect flight. ...> Full Article

Sensors for bat-inspired spy plane under development (3/14/2008)

A six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time. ...> Full Article

Birds, bats and insects hold secrets for aerospace engineers (2/5/2008)

Natural flyers like birds, bats and insects outperform man-made aircraft in aerobatics and efficiency. University of Michigan engineers are studying these animals as a step toward designing flapping-wing planes with wingspans smaller than a deck of playing cards. ...> Full Article