Tiny Glider Emulates Birds by Perching on Wire

[n2doc]

By Jason Paur July 22, 2010

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an autonomous glider that can land on a wire like a bird. The tiny glider could lead the way to highly maneuverable UAVs that could emulate many bird-like flight maneuvers, including landing on a wire to recharge, or navigating complex and cluttered airspace.

When pilots talk about flying like a bird, they’re usually referring to the simple things a bird can do. Even the most difficult maneuvers in an airplane are mundane for many birds. The secret to our avian role models’ abilities is their complete control in the near-stall and post-stall flight regime.

Rick Cory, a post-doctoral researcher at MIT, and his Ph.D. advisor Russ Tedrake took on the unusual project as a means of pushing the limits of robotic controls. The goal was to find a complex maneuver in nature and develop a mathematical model that would allow them to build robotic controls to emulate it.

The result of their effort is a breakthrough in aircraft control that could lead to an entirely new way of thinking about controllable flight for airplanes.


The project started in 2005. Tedrake, an associate professor in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, said the first step was figuring out the complex aerodynamics that occur when a bird approaches a perch and transitions from normal, forward flight to a pinpoint landing in a relatively short distance.



Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/07/tiny-glider-emulates-birds-by-perching-on-a-wire/

[NV Whino]

1. Very cool.