PigeonBot, the robot that folds the wings which bird… and takes real down

Testing technology does not cease to amaze. The experts have always been fixated on the movements that make birds with wings to fly, on how to close and extend, aspect difficult to imitate in the field of engineering. Perhaps even now, because a group of researchers from the Stanford University have designed and analyzed the possibilities of PigeonBot, a robot capable of articulate that mobility that is so characteristic, and which incorporates 40 feathers of a dove real, hence its name.The full study (available here) has been published in the journal Science Robotics by Eric Chang, Laura Y. Matloff, Amanda K. Stowers and David Lentink, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the institution of the american academic referred to above. This last, the principal investigator, stressed to AFP that “the aerospace engineers can begin to rethink how they can design, fabricate and control materials and wings that transform just as skillfully as those of birds”.For the photos, to the naked eye PigeonBot not seem like much, perception that changes, when observed in detail the natural way that moves the wings and the flight that made the machine while its creators handled by remote control.

The project has its origin in the study of the wings of the carcasses of pigeons common. In the wind tunnel, they discovered that the action of the wrist and fingers provide a precise control over the placement of the feathers, the wingspan of the wings and the area.During the flights, the manipulation of the wrist and fingers led to turning maneuvers stable in tight corners, which provided revealing evidence on which the birds use of these elements to direct flight. The team also noted that the flight feathers of adjacent join together to form a wing continued to be used in a microstructure with an action somewhat similar to that of velcro, adds AFP.
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