Video of the week: Festo’s bionic swift takes flight
Engineers at German automation giant Festo have demonstrated a bionic swift claimed to be able to mimic the incredible flight manoeuvres of this most agile of birds.
According to Festo, the use of lightweight structures is key to the agility of the robot bird, which despite having a body length of 44.5 centimetres and a wingspan of 68 centimetres weighs just 42 grams .
In order to replicate natural flight as closely as possible, the wings of the BionicSwifts are modelled closely on real bird feathers, with the individual lamellae made from an ultra-lightweight, flexible but very robust foam, and overlapping each other.
Connected to a carbon quill, these individual lamellae fan out during the wing upstroke, allowing air to flow through the wing. This means the birds require less power to propel the wing upwards. The lamellae then close during the downstroke to provide the flying robot with a more powerful flight. According to Festo, this close replication of bird wings gives the BionicSwift a better flight profile than previous efforts to develop beating wing systems.
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