So, how do you go about replicating the wings of a pigeon cadaver and developed a computer model of the bird’s wing motion. Using the model, they used real pigeon wings, of course!
The team that created the PigeonBot – a winged robot that it says approximates the graceful complexities of bird flight better than any other robot to date.
The researchers found that by changing the pitch of these artificial wrists and fingers, they could change the entire shape of its wings as it makes hairpin turns in mid-air like a real bird.
“It actually enables birds to fly further, longer, maneuver much better”, says Stanford professor of mechanical engineering, David Lentink said.
The team published this finding in a separate paper in the journal Science and Science Robotics. But they learned that some aspects of bird wing is similarly designed, we now know.
The team also discovered that tiny hooks can automatically lock the feathers together as soon as they separate too far apart – a mechanism that plays a critical role in the way the feathers move together.
Scientists have developed a flying robot with real pigeon feathers. When testing the PigeonBot wings in a wind tunnel, the team placed the pigeon feathers onto an artificial limbs.
A robot that resembles a pigeon and can make turns at sharp angles, much like real birds may point to the future of aerospace engineering – a continuously morphing wing. Unlike conventional aircraft wings without having to control each individual feather joints in each wing that can change shape, angle determined the angles of all the flight feathers, to manoeuvre.
