Robotic Seagull

Incredible-From Festo: http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/11369_11468.htm#id_11468

 

Overselling it a bit isn't it? Not so much mastered as gained significantly more understanding. Shame it looked like the CG was too far aft, though.

 

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Didn't to me-it was able to stop,hover, backup, take-off from the ground etc,etc. Incredibly great accomplishment.....(too bad about the rudder)

 

They are not the first by a long way. This has been examined by many over many decades, birds are basically unstable (and any craft based on it would be unflyable). IF you take a dead bird, stuff it and try and fly it, it will crash. I was working for a large aerospace firm 30 years ago that examined certain aspect of bird flight, it can be done but it is not practical for a man made device.

What they built does not fly like a bird. They had to cheat the stablity in all modes, including the addition of the extra tail fin. Birds do not need to be stable because they have a very complicated on-board stablity augmentation computer, its brain (which is far most sophisticated than any man made computer btw). It is like trying to make a machine that can ride a bicycle or jog like a human...it can be done, but there is no reason for it since it is easier to make a device that is stable and just power it.

It is so arrogant to claim they were the first people to "unlock" the "secret" of bird flight. What a load of tripe. They are only the first ones fool enough to think there was any merit in doing it. Besides, over 40 years ago I had a plastic wind-up toy bird that flew by flapping it wings, no computer required.

Now here is a real accomplishment, human flight without motorized assistance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzftp3gZMzQ

 

Compelling model-- kudos to the team who developed and built it.

 

Very cool.

 

That video must be a fake.
No way a human being could have a power and endurance in pectoral muscles to lift his body weight off the ground with flapping wings. Birds can do it because they have evolved a combination of particular characteristics necessary for the flight:
- low body density - between 750 and 950 kg/cu.m
- a hugely oversize (by human standards) pectoral muscles - 20-25% of the total body weight;
- a chest skeleton shaped to give pectoral muscles a strong base and the optimum path for a long and efficient power stroke.
We just can't compete with those little monsters.

 

Smart Bird

More on this development: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/07/robot-bird-drone-festo-ted.html


technical info:

 

It is a fake, a week after his cleaver video editing went viral he came out to admit it is a fake (look at the ground shadow, there when on the ground but is gone at take off). The guy is a film maker, not a pilot, engineer, or even an athlete.

I have more than a few times calculated the amount of power it would take to maintain level flight in still air and there is no way it is possible, even with an Olympic athlete on steroids. He did get the size of the wings about correct (very large), but the cleaver thing he did here was the wing flapping only provides forward motion, not lift. So he runs into a slight head wind, and the flapping just keeps him moving forward to maintain airflow over the wings. The wings are strapped to his back, not his arms. the arm motion is just to rotate the wing leading edge up and down. With that arrangement, it might be possible, with a head wind, to accomplish controlled flight.

But it would act more like a hang glider rather than actual muscle powered flight.

 

The video in the OP misses the part about how it all begun... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAfERVvGqco&feature=related

 

He comes clean.

Or does he?

-Tom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKhqYftI9PQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

THIS VIDEO IS FAKE

 

WHY ARE YOU YELLING?

-TOM

 

we know it is a fake, see post #9

 

If they can make a robotic seagull that can negotiate with his mates and tell them to join him in flight rather than defecating on my moored boat I'd consider that a great addition to mans technological advancement.