Nature truely is the best engineer - Let me know if you've seen any other cool bio-inspired engineering you want a deep dive on! And check out Onshape for FREE: Onshape.pro/Ziroth - You won't regret giving it a try!
Birds have a great design, but Nature did not engineer them. After all, birds ARE nature, or at least part of nature. What engineered them originally must therefore be extremely intelligent. Just FYI, seems like God to me. Ever considered that? I see every design in nature and immediately think of, for instance, a car. Great engineering, but the car didn't make itself. It had to be thought of and made with wisdom and knowledge. Birds are great, I like birds, the way an eagle soars, or a hummingbird hovers. Absolutely incredible
God made these creatures, so what we are observing is God's wisdom. Acknowledge the source of wisdom. It's sounds awfully silly when people say the creature itself is responsible for their construction and ability. Just like saying humans are responsible for the design of the wrist or shoulder. How exactly?
@@mach5406 lol ever heard of evolution? I know it’s unfathomable for the feeble minded, just don’t talk like something people made up 3000 years ago is still a valid explanation.
Birds can feel the airflow over each feather and each part of each feather. They intuitively know what the boundary layer is doing over every part of their bodies. Pretty cool.
I imagine it's a lot like grappling. If you've ever done jiu jitsu, or wrestling you'll know what I mean. Once you're past the initial "no idea what to do" phase you start to realise you can feel all the different balance points, and the pressure the other person is putting on different parts of your body. It's just a case of tuning your movements to those stimuli. Plus having a degree of strength, and toughness to see those movements through.
Feels like this is the kind of thing where a purpose built locating drone would probably find the person faster and more accurately, and then a purpose built emergency rations delivery drone would provide much better survival prospects, rather than trying to combine the 2 into a compromised version of each.
Unfortunately they cannot be trained this way. We have been using bird's for a hunting for thousands of years, what makes you think we haven't tried that ?
Even if this were possible, which is better? A bird that has had hundreds of hours of training put into it and would require cooking if they found someone. Or a drone that is cheap to produce, does not require new training for each one, can feed a person without requiring cooking, and can even act as a gps transmitter...?
Funny. How much $ do you think it would cost to train a bird to find a specific person and land next to them? Crows can recognize human faces. For reference it costs around $100k to train a military dog. Per dog. Shit probably $250k+ now. I remember that $100k number from like a decade ago and you’re not important enough for me to go look it up.
A realistic scenario now: you're lost in the wilderness hoping to get rescued, thankfully eating a rice-cake drone that sacrificed itself for your own survival, and suddenly a giant taxidermied turkey swoops in, threatens you, and steals your mechanical snack. Living in the future is *wild.*
The ability to hover would be interesting but that could be a bit of over constrained thinking. Gliding in circles is generally going to be far more energy efficient, and what hovering offers in package delivery is perhaps better suited to nets. The tight landing that hovering allows is unique and interesting, but so is the hopping mechanic mentioned here. Birds pitch up to shave off speed when landing and that really makes more sense. We want a system that is optimised for flight but can be adapted for landing. Hovering like a quadcopter is more landing gear that just happens to fly. Hovering for a fixed perspective with a cameras is interesting. Perhaps the biomimicry and object tracking found in AI gimbals would be a video worthy. Topics like Pigeon head bob / Chicken head gimbal / field of vision of flying predators vs flying prey could be worth a look
Circling for delivery can be done. Just lower the load on a "wire" and it will naturally descend in the middle of the circle. This used to be done in Papua New Guinea for delivery into forested areas by Cessna (typically).
Just wanted to mention that there are birds similar the goshawk that do hover. Almost perfectly, even. It's quite unnerving when I'm watching them hovering up in the air, occasionally correcting their position against the wind, but barely moving from their spot so they can spot prey in the fields and swoop down to catch them
@zirothTech Nice video, PhD in engineering here, I can tell you this may find its way into long range drones, but commercial aerospace will need some time to figure out how to make it cheap and reliable! Look forward to an update video in 2 years!
I used to fly free flight airplanes. Many older designs used a lifting stabilizer. Offsetting the thrust line provided a turn in one direction when the motor was making it climb, then when the motor or rubber band quit the tilted horizontal stabilizer would cause it to circle in the opposite direction wile gliding down.
another option would be tilting motors which would enable a drone to take off and land vertically and hover while also giving good efficiency in straight and level flight. the thing is that horizontal flight requires far less power than hovering, because the thrust from the motors is used to overcome the drag which is far less than the weight of the whole thing. L/D ratios of 10:1 or higher are achievable, reducing the power requirements (and thereby increasing endurance) by the same factor.
Spoke with a mechanical and Aerospace engineer who works for a Boeing subsidiary, he works on X-Planes. He was mentioning how in all their experimental designs they have had to begin using biomimicry in almost every experimental plane. Great video!
I came into this world in the middle of the last century. Watching this video amazes me from this point how much more we are still learning about bird flight. Bravo.
tbh it's funny how you say with so much confidence things like : 12:10 - "we still don't understand exactly how birds achieve their incredible maneuverability" we don't do planes with 'very variable wing shape', not cause We DiDnT kNoW hOw BirDs FlY but cause its a : HELL of complexity + adding more moving parts only complicates things and and makes the plane less reliable with more potential points of failure anyways this bird drone research is cool tho
As a lifelong pilot, I found your video quite revealing. It has often occurred to me that nature has found solutions through millions of years of evolution. It has surprised me that aero engineers appear not to have used nature's examples as an obvious frame of reference for development and refinement. Winglets are a prime example.
I think there's a historical bias. Previous generations of materials didn't allow the light weight required to make some of this work, perhaps? And, while I'm no fan of "AI", reinforcement learning of the underlying control methods certainly makes it easier to implement. 🤷🏻
6:55 This tail-twisting control of the trailing edge flow is the most relevant to high speed stealth aircraft, although I think the feathers are quite antithetical to low-RCS design. A completely different tail design with a recessed spinal actuation point might give better all-aspect stealth while maintaining high maneuverability than modern stealth empennage designs. The flying wing is better for stealth still, but this could provide better maneuverability than that while giving better stealth than the F-35 and F-22 tails.
Seeing them sticking a classic tail on the drone it made me wonder if a stator wouldn't be better (like on those engines boeing are looking at with the external rotor and stator pair like big propellers on the back of a jet engine) as a way to counter the propellor torque and also improve efficiency without introducing yaw stiffness.
It is interesting that when we "discover" how nature does things we then want to take things as far as we have doing it "our" way. Nature solves things in a good enough way for the conditions that they encounter in nature. The highest horizontal speed for a bird in 170kph (105 mph) so taking the ideas and expecting them to scale to high subsonic or supersonic is a bit of a stretch. That said there are a HUGE number of things that can be done at "low" speed.
similarly expecting the way we do things already that was orginally created for lower speeds shouldn't automatically be assumed to be the best option for higher speeds either.
Cool stuff. Really cool. One thing I think you should consider for you're videos. I think you should close/end the video on you recapping or something like that. Just a few seconds is enough. I'm sure Onshape is good and that having sponsorship is good too but it's you're channel and with me for example I watched for the content. Ending on the topic of content or just with you I think would be a little nicer.
This is interesting from a research perspective, but something like this would never be practical as a functioning drone. The mechanical complexity adds a significant weight penalty that dramatically shortens flight time and limits payload. Notice there weren't even cameras on any of the? Notice he never mentioned flight times? I flew planes this size for 15 years and am familiar with the components and weight restrictions. The "11%*" efficiency increase isn't going to be enough! *Even this was suspect. It appeared to be an 11% increase from its original configuration but they claimed an 11% increase over a "fixed wing."
The really interesting concept here, is that VTOL is achieved with no additional moving parts for the transitioning between vertical and horizontal flight, and therefore, in theory, less weight and a better reliability. This is the same basic airframe concept as the Pivotal Black Fly which first flew in 2011, and I would love to see more discussion on the comparison between the two. The Blackfly was always focused on electric powered human flight, with associated increased focus on redundancy (8 motors, 2 batteries per motor, dual redundant flight controls etc), but has limited range due to the electric only approach - less than 100km carrying up to 113Kg. Strix has done a great job with range and flight duration - apparently by using hybrid (electric plus fuel) engines. Giving it 180kg load and up to 800kg. Demonstrates how much further electric powered flight still needs to go. Strix also looks like it might be able to land on a runway if needed, while Blackfly cannot.
If they get the wing tilt and flapping in the mmix it could 'hover' by angling up and flapping? IT also could just do small loitering circles on very low power. Would be interesting to give them thermal cameras to find raising hear in the air currents.
More moving parts means more maintenance, more maintenance means more money spent on the upkeep, means less likely to be used in the military, yeah it is cool but doubtful it will make it to the military part any time soon.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 funny how i don't see any of the Dune ornothopters flying around in the sky with missiles attached... could it be the costs and speeds they go that prevents them from being useful in a military setting?
If you think about it, having feathers attached to flesh ie sensory input for actual lifting forces. Can you image every hair on your arm being able to analyze the lift and wind generated or flowing across them.
woah! i saw this guys plane a while back at a small electric plane flying in new Waverly Texas. was super cool to see! awesome to see randomly find it on youtube! this is cool!
Wing shape shifting is done on all modern large aircraft. Leading & trailing flaps that extend out, usually on take-off & landing. The reason they don't look like bird wings as per this video is strength vis-a-vis payload. Drones that look like tweety birds are cool toys, & they have distinct military advantages, but maybe only for surveillance cf delivering ordnance. Splayed (gaps between feathers) on wing tips are good for slow flight and even hovering (look at a red kite in the wind)
11:00 we kinda had that with old sweep wings of mig 23 and the legendary f14 its just they are too heavy and mechanicaly complex and matnece hevy to justify. there are now better ways to ensure monovabilaty like vortex genoters (conards and leading edge root extensions especially), and thrust vectoring id expet wing morphing to have similar problem and radar returns would have to be considered too not saying its impossible but those are the challenges itd deal with. however flaps could are a form of wing morphing that is used in most aircraft military and civain also winglets well not morphing wings are inspired by birds and reduce drag on civain and military aircraft (though i dont think they've ever been used on a fighter)
that is not true, the M23 and F14 did not have variable wings for manuevrablility that are 'too complex and maintainence heavy' they had simple 2 stage wings for SPEED efficiencies (different leading edge shape is more efficient at different speeds), but even if they were they still wouldn't have been droped for the reasons you think as the things you mention like thrust vectoring actually are more mechanically complex and maintenaince heavy.
@matthiuskoenig3378 the reason why the f14 was such a good dogfighter was because of the variable sweep wings they allowed for good performance in many different speed regimes at low speed the wings can unfold to produce more lift Wich delays stalls it also helps with carrier landings. Monovabilaty is also why the mig 23 had them though the mig 23 wasn't the best dogfighter and was mainly an interceptor. There were aircraft just as fast as the f14 like the f106 that lacks sweep wings so sweep wings aren't the only way to go fast but they do make it so that fast aircraft are movable I will admit there are other reasons for sweep wings like wanting a fast aircraft that has a lot of payload capacity but that mainly applies to bombers and my comment was about fighters. Sweep wings may be conceptually simple, but they are complex to make work in an reliable way because of the amount of air resistance the wings needs to be counted by the wings and you need to get hydraulics and wires to the wings for the elevators and lights and hard points if the wing has any. it is because of this that sweep wings were matnce nightmares with the f111 required about 180 hours of matnce per flight hour and the f14 required about 60, most fourth gens require about 10 at most 20. Thrust vectoring may be maintenance heavy but it's a lot easier to maintain than sweep wings and vortex generators like canards and leading edge root extensions have negligible matnce increases because it's either a part of the wing or moving the tail
allows the wing to keep it's shape relative to the airflow versus say an f15 or a certain few other aircrafts' wing-sweep, also keeps control surfaces in line with the airflow vs said wing-sweep, as the whole wing is also the control surface.. i did play with the entire wings being the control surface on a physics sandbox game that handles the basics of fixed-wing flying, it's extremely sensitive, but is very capable, though i know that game definitely isn't 1:1 with actual physics..
It would be interesting to see the PID controller of this drone compared to a standard variable sweep drone/plane. Both use similar concepts in changing the wing position to alter how the craft behaves.
AI(in this context) is automated response to external stimuli. A person is incapable of responding with delicacy to such complex stimuli divorced from their own body, at least not as well as AI can be trained to do. I'm not a blanket supporter of AI, but this is an area in which it is particularly suited
The contribution to flight of birds twisting their tails was explored in a rudimentary way by early pioneers of manned flight (George Cayley’s 1852 ‘governable parachute’) with a cruciform ‘dart’ tail hinged on a universal link and operated by cables. Given the increasing influence of drone use in the Ukraine war it is likely that the study of bird sized drones will be given special attention by the military. The thrust generated by a rotary propellor blade is an innovation of flight that, despite the millions of years of biology, mankind can take unique credit for.
they may not understand how birds move but i do, a birds whole body flexes, their wings also flex along with their tail, you combine these traits with the ability to fan out a surface or constrict it and you get the ability to suddenly stop in the air, change direction rapidly and do what looks kinda like an instant U turn because they used the change in shape and momentum to rapidly change direction or dodge stuff the physics for this can be as advanced or simple as you like, personally i'd use a body made of a springy material with servos that have tiny cables to pull the parts to alter those shapes in groups, issue is making a controller that would adapt this in real time because a normal pilot is gonna have a huge pain in the butt adapting to 20 buttons or levers so it makes more sense to simply put those movements on the edges of the sticks or past midway out with a range for a max range and program them separately so they only happen when you really just need that extra movement to do the thing you wanted
The same principle is used by airplanes during aileron rolls. Which is why I don't understand why they still haven't made a 4 wings electric airoplane (or a "flying wind turbine") that uses these aileron rolls (full 360° revolutions on its longitudinal axis) to recharge the batteries airborne. In a 4 winged electric airplane basically the two front wings would spin the fuselage in one direction, and the back 2 wings will spin on the opposite direction at double force, making the plane spin on its axis, acting like a “flying wind turbine”. What we would see spinning (from the ground) it’s only the back of the plane. The pilot and passengers stay on the front, so are never upside-down.
*Speaking of A.I solving flight problems* ---- When Concorde was undergoing ground tests ------- the builders fired frozen chickens at it's cockpit ------ to simulate a bird-strikes. 🙂
Your explanation was very interesting. Thank you very much! But I doubt that morphing wings will be used for airplanes in the future. The construction and production of the F14 showed that this kind of complexity in wings would impose enormous challenges on the manufacturing process.
The coolest aspect of birds is not to fly but to land on tree branches for that there is the US Air Force and their spectacular research work spanning multiple decades
everything can hover… it's just a question of having enough thrust. Point it straight upward and that thing will hover! In fact… that's what a quadcopter does and why it's so inefficient.
I would argue against the fact that nature is the holy grail in robotics. For instance a simple thing like a wheel Is not to be found anywhere in nature for a moving purposes, but in reality it proves to be really effective on a certain terrain
I was wondering about bird velocity given their pose, with pose available through video and AI. As a research field to learn about flight characteristics
"They can fit into a flock seamlessly" *_Ah yes, Franken-Hover-Turkeys are well known creatures, a bit strange but overall gentle creatures._* It was a good an informative video though, I've known about boundary-layer manipulation in aircraft for a while, the B2 bomber uses electromagnetic skin effects to dampen noise and induce more laminar airflow to the point that in silent mode you can't hear its engines (it does not have ionic _thrust_ but it does have ionic flow control) but I knew there was going to be lots of promise in moving wing designs, one shape is not ideal for all airspeeds, a wing that can adjust to the airspeed is ideal.
After a long time I found something good to see on the internet, I am trapped in shorts , reel ai system that only shows that content that keeps you scrolling and damage your brain but I like your videos bro it's good content for my brain
This is a great video. I have been watching the neighbor's crowd with this same curiosity into how they're maneuvering. Also, why do they never get winded from their thrust and lift.
Just as a point of clarification here: The fact that the analyses they used were "Bayesian" versus "Gaussian/frequentist" isn't actually important here. Bayes vs Gauss addresses probability from two different philosophical perspectives whose differences are important, but probably not specifically here. More, the analysis used to find the optimal wing configuration here looked to be some kind of Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) technique or something very similar. My main point is that both Bayesian and Gaussian statistics can perform these kinds of analyses just fine and will often come up with very similar results. TLDR: The analyses they used were some sort of MLE-type analysis that CAN be done a Bayesian way but the Bayesian aspect of it is not what is important here. (Final concession: Most people would agree that, in almost all cases, Bayesian methods will provide results of equal or better value than Gaussian ones, but almost all of our traditional stats are Gaussian and we're still in the transition to Bayesian stats as a whole)
I guess all you need to have both abilities just add wings to standard drone and use two modes for flying, one with wings for efficiency and one with propellers for hovering and precision
its far more complex than that, because they have tried that and the wings make the hovering harder and the hovering propellers add drag for the winged flight. so you get added complexity and weight while only haveing mimimal advantages.
I can imagine something like the Ptero trans wing drone with Stow wings. It can tuck the wings back to VTOL like a V22 then fold out to fly in bird mode.
Wait a second. Imagine a sentry drone made of edible materials. When the task is completed or when its presence is about to be noticed, it disintegrate itself and the remains is eaten by birds and other animals.
Love your analysis and presentation. I point of order: I think you'll find that Floreano is pronounced FLOR-EE-AHH-NO not FLOREENO. Our English spelling and pronunciation mindset misreads what is there.
Birds also have a flexible spine and tilting head that allows them to distort the level airflow and center of balance while maneuvering or rolling. Similar to a high diver and the way they time different sections of a dive to adjust their tracking. These robots, though very cool, will never match birds until they feature and perfect these characteristics. But to this day, no robot has a full and functioning spine... hmmm. Binocular vision helps, as well.
That is amazing. This coupled with some artificial muscles that would be something. Imagine just letting it grow more cells in areas of damage or structural fatigue.
Upping drone efficiency is of immense value for medical deliveries in the third world. There are already companies using fixed wing drones to move medical supplies back and forth in Africa over multi-km distances. Anything that makes their delivery craft more efficient literally leads to fractional human lives being saved.
Absolutely, although I doubt thus kind of design will be used on those areas, one other benefit of the fixed wing is the reduced number of moving parts and increased rigidity which allows it to be slingshot and means that less backup parts need to be kept on site for repairs. But I could imagine in areas where slingshotting isn't an option this would be great.
For subsonic flight this could be real applicable. For Faster then sound flight (this idea has already been tested and proven way to expensive and dangerous.) There is a reason nobody does Swing wing planes anymore. But I could see this being huge for efficiency and comfort reasons with regards to Mass air travel.
Nature truely is the best engineer - Let me know if you've seen any other cool bio-inspired engineering you want a deep dive on! And check out Onshape for FREE: Onshape.pro/Ziroth - You won't regret giving it a try!
*truly
And people still say birds are real! 😂😂
Birds have a great design, but Nature did not engineer them. After all, birds ARE nature, or at least part of nature.
What engineered them originally must therefore be extremely intelligent. Just FYI, seems like God to me. Ever considered that? I see every design in nature and immediately think of, for instance, a car. Great engineering, but the car didn't make itself. It had to be thought of and made with wisdom and knowledge. Birds are great, I like birds, the way an eagle soars, or a hummingbird hovers. Absolutely incredible
God made these creatures, so what we are observing is God's wisdom. Acknowledge the source of wisdom.
It's sounds awfully silly when people say the creature itself is responsible for their construction and ability. Just like saying humans are responsible for the design of the wrist or shoulder. How exactly?
@@mach5406 lol ever heard of evolution? I know it’s unfathomable for the feeble minded, just don’t talk like something people made up 3000 years ago is still a valid explanation.
"They can fit into a flock seamlessly"
Shows a nightmare monstrosity of a turkey-copter.
12:16
Hey Bob where did you get those cool LEDs and robot prosthetics? 😂
Literally straight out of wh40k
only thing missing is replacing the eyes with red LEDs
I was literally about to write the same thing 😂
Birds can feel the airflow over each feather and each part of each feather. They intuitively know what the boundary layer is doing over every part of their bodies. Pretty cool.
Now that the artificial bird has artificial feathers, its time to stick a dozen strain gauges on their stems to have artificial feel of airflow
boeng just use 1 aoa for senses airflow.
@@awancah7309 Boeing. Lol.
@@awancah7309 lmao
I imagine it's a lot like grappling. If you've ever done jiu jitsu, or wrestling you'll know what I mean. Once you're past the initial "no idea what to do" phase you start to realise you can feel all the different balance points, and the pressure the other person is putting on different parts of your body. It's just a case of tuning your movements to those stimuli. Plus having a degree of strength, and toughness to see those movements through.
Edible rice-cake wings are truly an innovation nobody saw coming
I was like, "That is so stu.... Oh!"
It’s Sunday and billions of people will hear “This is the body…” say “Amen” and receive a rice wafer.
Many saw this coming.
Feels like this is the kind of thing where a purpose built locating drone would probably find the person faster and more accurately, and then a purpose built emergency rations delivery drone would provide much better survival prospects, rather than trying to combine the 2 into a compromised version of each.
Now that's recyclable!
The engineers thought outside the lunchbox.
The footage on screen when you say "Can fit into a flock seamlessly" is so perfect.
12:16
_You know what else could be sent to locate a stranded hiker and has edible wings....._ a trained *bird* 😂
Unfortunately they cannot be trained this way. We have been using bird's for a hunting for thousands of years, what makes you think we haven't tried that ?
Personally, I'd prefer rice cakes. But chocolate covered rice crispies would be even better
Even if this were possible, which is better?
A bird that has had hundreds of hours of training put into it and would require cooking if they found someone.
Or a drone that is cheap to produce, does not require new training for each one, can feed a person without requiring cooking, and can even act as a gps transmitter...?
Funny. How much $ do you think it would cost to train a bird to find a specific person and land next to them? Crows can recognize human faces. For reference it costs around $100k to train a military dog. Per dog. Shit probably $250k+ now. I remember that $100k number from like a decade ago and you’re not important enough for me to go look it up.
but i dont like killing and eating raw birds.
A realistic scenario now: you're lost in the wilderness hoping to get rescued, thankfully eating a rice-cake drone that sacrificed itself for your own survival, and suddenly a giant taxidermied turkey swoops in, threatens you, and steals your mechanical snack. Living in the future is *wild.*
And then another drone that drops a fireworks in steel shell on you.
Anyway I for one welcome our new ASI overlords and their flying robot birbs.
I thought this was a weird thing to say, then I saw to the end of the video.
The way you describe it, living in the wild is future!
The ability to hover would be interesting but that could be a bit of over constrained thinking. Gliding in circles is generally going to be far more energy efficient, and what hovering offers in package delivery is perhaps better suited to nets. The tight landing that hovering allows is unique and interesting, but so is the hopping mechanic mentioned here. Birds pitch up to shave off speed when landing and that really makes more sense. We want a system that is optimised for flight but can be adapted for landing. Hovering like a quadcopter is more landing gear that just happens to fly.
Hovering for a fixed perspective with a cameras is interesting. Perhaps the biomimicry and object tracking found in AI gimbals would be a video worthy. Topics like Pigeon head bob / Chicken head gimbal / field of vision of flying predators vs flying prey could be worth a look
Circling for delivery can be done. Just lower the load on a "wire" and it will naturally descend in the middle of the circle. This used to be done in Papua New Guinea for delivery into forested areas by Cessna (typically).
Just wanted to mention that there are birds similar the goshawk that do hover. Almost perfectly, even. It's quite unnerving when I'm watching them hovering up in the air, occasionally correcting their position against the wind, but barely moving from their spot so they can spot prey in the fields and swoop down to catch them
Technically that's flying, not hovering as they cannot do it in standind air.
The wind powers them, no piece of cake either!
@@SnowLeopard1011 the only bird that can truely hover is the hummingbird, the rest use wind to create neutral horizontal force.
@zirothTech Nice video, PhD in engineering here, I can tell you this may find its way into long range drones, but commercial aerospace will need some time to figure out how to make it cheap and reliable! Look forward to an update video in 2 years!
20
@@H1tARun ya could be that long given Boeing doors fall off
I used to fly free flight airplanes. Many older designs used a lifting stabilizer. Offsetting the thrust line provided a turn in one direction when the motor was making it climb, then when the motor or rubber band quit the tilted horizontal stabilizer would cause it to circle in the opposite direction wile gliding down.
We had F-14 F--111 MiG-23, MiG-17, Tu-144, B1-B
Nice to see morphing wings!
Swing wings were the first thing I thought of.
another option would be tilting motors which would enable a drone to take off and land vertically and hover while also giving good efficiency in straight and level flight. the thing is that horizontal flight requires far less power than hovering, because the thrust from the motors is used to overcome the drag which is far less than the weight of the whole thing. L/D ratios of 10:1 or higher are achievable, reducing the power requirements (and thereby increasing endurance) by the same factor.
As a falconer, and keen R/C aircraft enthusiast, I really enjoyed this video. More please ! 😂
1:35 may be just may be inspire new weapons
Primary feathers are asymmetrical so they flex on the upstroke, providing forward thrust.
taxidermi birds hidden among the flock is absolutely horrifying.
imagine a human cadavar filled with machines just walking around a city subway.
A discount Terminator?
It might be better than some of the meat sacks we have today...
Spoke with a mechanical and Aerospace engineer who works for a Boeing subsidiary, he works on X-Planes.
He was mentioning how in all their experimental designs they have had to begin using biomimicry in almost every experimental plane.
Great video!
The “Birds Aren’t Real!!” brigade will LOVE this vid haha
12:18 "hello fellow turkeys"
I came into this world in the middle of the last century. Watching this video amazes me from this point how much more we are still learning about bird flight. Bravo.
What is the top ordnance payload this drone can carry?
tbh it's funny how you say with so much confidence things like :
12:10 - "we still don't understand exactly how birds achieve their incredible maneuverability"
we don't do planes with 'very variable wing shape', not cause We DiDnT kNoW hOw BirDs FlY but cause its a : HELL of complexity + adding more moving parts only complicates things and and makes the plane less reliable with more potential points of failure
anyways this bird drone research is cool tho
As a lifelong pilot, I found your video quite revealing. It has often occurred to me that nature has found solutions through millions of years of evolution. It has surprised me that aero engineers appear not to have used nature's examples as an obvious frame of reference for development and refinement. Winglets are a prime example.
@ Thank you for your reply, although it did not make much sense ''anything this'' ? Have another try.
I think there's a historical bias. Previous generations of materials didn't allow the light weight required to make some of this work, perhaps? And, while I'm no fan of "AI", reinforcement learning of the underlying control methods certainly makes it easier to implement. 🤷🏻
@@michaelbigelow3255 you obviously have no concept of what I know and understand.
6:55 This tail-twisting control of the trailing edge flow is the most relevant to high speed stealth aircraft, although I think the feathers are quite antithetical to low-RCS design.
A completely different tail design with a recessed spinal actuation point might give better all-aspect stealth while maintaining high maneuverability than modern stealth empennage designs. The flying wing is better for stealth still, but this could provide better maneuverability than that while giving better stealth than the F-35 and F-22 tails.
Seeing them sticking a classic tail on the drone it made me wonder if a stator wouldn't be better (like on those engines boeing are looking at with the external rotor and stator pair like big propellers on the back of a jet engine) as a way to counter the propellor torque and also improve efficiency without introducing yaw stiffness.
I like the idea of flying on/in gigantic robotic birds
I like the tail twisting part. It kind of reminds me of the initial phase of a bicycle turn. Both being counterintuitive.
How fascinating. Hard to imagine what is coming in the future. Thanks for sharing.
You explain it well.
It is interesting that when we "discover" how nature does things we then want to take things as far as we have doing it "our" way. Nature solves things in a good enough way for the conditions that they encounter in nature. The highest horizontal speed for a bird in 170kph (105 mph) so taking the ideas and expecting them to scale to high subsonic or supersonic is a bit of a stretch. That said there are a HUGE number of things that can be done at "low" speed.
similarly expecting the way we do things already that was orginally created for lower speeds shouldn't automatically be assumed to be the best option for higher speeds either.
Cool stuff. Really cool. One thing I think you should consider for you're videos.
I think you should close/end the video on you recapping or something like that. Just a few seconds is enough. I'm sure Onshape is good and that having sponsorship is good too but it's you're channel and with me for example I watched for the content. Ending on the topic of content or just with you I think would be a little nicer.
True,as long as it's not a condition of the videos sponsor.
This is interesting from a research perspective, but something like this would never be practical as a functioning drone. The mechanical complexity adds a significant weight penalty that dramatically shortens flight time and limits payload. Notice there weren't even cameras on any of the? Notice he never mentioned flight times? I flew planes this size for 15 years and am familiar with the components and weight restrictions. The "11%*" efficiency increase isn't going to be enough!
*Even this was suspect. It appeared to be an 11% increase from its original configuration but they claimed an 11% increase over a "fixed wing."
Well, maybe in a few years, or a decade this tech will be advanced enough to have actual uses, all we can do is wait and see.
The really interesting concept here, is that VTOL is achieved with no additional moving parts for the transitioning between vertical and horizontal flight, and therefore, in theory, less weight and a better reliability.
This is the same basic airframe concept as the Pivotal Black Fly which first flew in 2011, and I would love to see more discussion on the comparison between the two. The Blackfly was always focused on electric powered human flight, with associated increased focus on redundancy (8 motors, 2 batteries per motor, dual redundant flight controls etc), but has limited range due to the electric only approach - less than 100km carrying up to 113Kg. Strix has done a great job with range and flight duration - apparently by using hybrid (electric plus fuel) engines. Giving it 180kg load and up to 800kg. Demonstrates how much further electric powered flight still needs to go. Strix also looks like it might be able to land on a runway if needed, while Blackfly cannot.
9:05 my grandpa when a random bird entered in his property
If they get the wing tilt and flapping in the mmix it could 'hover' by angling up and flapping? IT also could just do small loitering circles on very low power.
Would be interesting to give them thermal cameras to find raising hear in the air currents.
Incredible, keep up this amazing stuff. Do bees add or detract from the 'natural aviation' story. ?
Just a quick question: Why?
What problem is being solved here? Or is that a secondary procedure?
More moving parts means more maintenance, more maintenance means more money spent on the upkeep, means less likely to be used in the military, yeah it is cool but doubtful it will make it to the military part any time soon.
you realise quadcopters use a massive amount of moveing parts compared to a monocopter or a fixedwing design yet are widely used in current wars...
@matthiuskoenig3378 that is quadcopters and also these are recreational with a lot of moving parts that are easily removed by somebody with a gun.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 funny how i don't see any of the Dune ornothopters flying around in the sky with missiles attached... could it be the costs and speeds they go that prevents them from being useful in a military setting?
@matthiuskoenig3378 the answer will be yes to what i said because that is exactly why you don't see moving parts much on many fighters anymore either.
Military planes already need much more maintenance than commercial jets.
If you think about it, having feathers attached to flesh ie sensory input for actual lifting forces. Can you image every hair on your arm being able to analyze the lift and wind generated or flowing across them.
The hilarious satirical conspiracy theory that birds are robots which exist solely as platforms for surveillance is becoming reality.
woah! i saw this guys plane a while back at a small electric plane flying in new Waverly Texas. was super cool to see! awesome to see randomly find it on youtube! this is cool!
Biomimicry is such a fascinating field of study and i hope we continue to see vast amounts of advancements in this field
Could you use the morphing technology on a propeller?
Wing shape shifting is done on all modern large aircraft. Leading & trailing flaps that extend out, usually on take-off & landing. The reason they don't look like bird wings as per this video is strength vis-a-vis payload. Drones that look like tweety birds are cool toys, & they have distinct military advantages, but maybe only for surveillance cf delivering ordnance. Splayed (gaps between feathers) on wing tips are good for slow flight and even hovering (look at a red kite in the wind)
Thanks!
Why not EDFs?
Finally more on this topic
This is SO GOOD!👍
11:00 we kinda had that with old sweep wings of mig 23 and the legendary f14 its just they are too heavy and mechanicaly complex and matnece hevy to justify. there are now better ways to ensure monovabilaty like vortex genoters (conards and leading edge root extensions especially), and thrust vectoring id expet wing morphing to have similar problem and radar returns would have to be considered too not saying its impossible but those are the challenges itd deal with. however flaps could are a form of wing morphing that is used in most aircraft military and civain also winglets well not morphing wings are inspired by birds and reduce drag on civain and military aircraft (though i dont think they've ever been used on a fighter)
that is not true, the M23 and F14 did not have variable wings for manuevrablility that are 'too complex and maintainence heavy' they had simple 2 stage wings for SPEED efficiencies (different leading edge shape is more efficient at different speeds), but even if they were they still wouldn't have been droped for the reasons you think as the things you mention like thrust vectoring actually are more mechanically complex and maintenaince heavy.
@matthiuskoenig3378 the reason why the f14 was such a good dogfighter was because of the variable sweep wings they allowed for good performance in many different speed regimes at low speed the wings can unfold to produce more lift Wich delays stalls it also helps with carrier landings. Monovabilaty is also why the mig 23 had them though the mig 23 wasn't the best dogfighter and was mainly an interceptor. There were aircraft just as fast as the f14 like the f106 that lacks sweep wings so sweep wings aren't the only way to go fast but they do make it so that fast aircraft are movable
I will admit there are other reasons for sweep wings like wanting a fast aircraft that has a lot of payload capacity but that mainly applies to bombers and my comment was about fighters.
Sweep wings may be conceptually simple, but they are complex to make work in an reliable way because of the amount of air resistance the wings needs to be counted by the wings and you need to get hydraulics and wires to the wings for the elevators and lights and hard points if the wing has any. it is because of this that sweep wings were matnce nightmares with the f111 required about 180 hours of matnce per flight hour and the f14 required about 60, most fourth gens require about 10 at most 20.
Thrust vectoring may be maintenance heavy but it's a lot easier to maintain than sweep wings and vortex generators like canards and leading edge root extensions have negligible matnce increases because it's either a part of the wing or moving the tail
Love your video's, from North Queensland Australia
Without saying too much, the elimination of vertical stabilizers while retaining yaw stability has some massive advantages for stealth aircraft.
how so?
You didn't mention any advantage to feather like segments in the wing?
Does Onshape have CFD and combustion?
allows the wing to keep it's shape relative to the airflow versus say an f15 or a certain few other aircrafts' wing-sweep, also keeps control surfaces in line with the airflow vs said wing-sweep, as the whole wing is also the control surface.. i did play with the entire wings being the control surface on a physics sandbox game that handles the basics of fixed-wing flying, it's extremely sensitive, but is very capable, though i know that game definitely isn't 1:1 with actual physics..
It would be interesting to see the PID controller of this drone compared to a standard variable sweep drone/plane. Both use similar concepts in changing the wing position to alter how the craft behaves.
It is good to see more interest in low speed flight especially so with variable geometry.
great video as always Ryan
10:43 AI is more brain dead trial and error than intelligence. But bioplanes are an interesting field for sure
Intelligence is nothing more than trial and error
Trial and error is quite literally how humans learn dip shit
AI(in this context) is automated response to external stimuli. A person is incapable of responding with delicacy to such complex stimuli divorced from their own body, at least not as well as AI can be trained to do.
I'm not a blanket supporter of AI, but this is an area in which it is particularly suited
@blackoak4978 very well said
This was an especially cool video!
It’s going to be so interesting to see if this technology translates over to full scale sized aircraft! I can’t wait! I agree!
Imagine a stunt prop plane like this, might actually be cool enough to bring them back
This is far to complex for any large aircraft let alone one for a hobbyist. that's why there aren't many swing wing aircraft left
The contribution to flight of birds twisting their tails was explored in a rudimentary way by early pioneers of manned flight (George Cayley’s 1852 ‘governable parachute’) with a cruciform ‘dart’ tail hinged on a universal link and operated by cables. Given the increasing influence of drone use in the Ukraine war it is likely that the study of bird sized drones will be given special attention by the military. The thrust generated by a rotary propellor blade is an innovation of flight that, despite the millions of years of biology, mankind can take unique credit for.
EDIBLE WINGS HAS MY VOTE! THAT IS GENIOUS!
Damn, this is truly brilliant engineering. Good job
Thank you for this. 👍👍👍👍👍
When he builds the robot bees like in that black mirror episode "Hated....?" Just make sure that they cannot be hacked. 😮
Robot bees are the future.
There are so many robots where the only use case they can think of is a rescue mission, like that just isn't a big enough market for all these robots
It's a way for them to say "Military Recon" without saying it directly. They know their real customers will make the connection.
they may not understand how birds move but i do, a birds whole body flexes, their wings also flex along with their tail, you combine these traits with the ability to fan out a surface or constrict it and you get the ability to suddenly stop in the air, change direction rapidly and do what looks kinda like an instant U turn because they used the change in shape and momentum to rapidly change direction or dodge stuff
the physics for this can be as advanced or simple as you like, personally i'd use a body made of a springy material with servos that have tiny cables to pull the parts to alter those shapes in groups, issue is making a controller that would adapt this in real time because a normal pilot is gonna have a huge pain in the butt adapting to 20 buttons or levers so it makes more sense to simply put those movements on the edges of the sticks or past midway out with a range for a max range and program them separately so they only happen when you really just need that extra movement to do the thing you wanted
Please let me know where I can buy a raptor bid ?????
Biomimetics is the future of quite a lot of technology, although I might be a little biased 😄
So very cool. Already imagining gliders...
The same principle is used by airplanes during aileron rolls. Which is why I don't understand why they still haven't made a 4 wings electric airoplane (or a "flying wind turbine") that uses these aileron rolls (full 360° revolutions on its longitudinal axis) to recharge the batteries airborne. In a 4 winged electric airplane basically the two front wings would spin the fuselage in one direction, and the back 2 wings will spin on the opposite direction at double force, making the plane spin on its axis, acting like a “flying wind turbine”. What we would see spinning (from the ground) it’s only the back of the plane. The pilot and passengers stay on the front, so are never upside-down.
I need one, now.
*Speaking of A.I solving flight problems* ----
When Concorde was undergoing ground tests ------- the builders fired frozen chickens at it's cockpit ------ to simulate a bird-strikes. 🙂
Your explanation was very interesting. Thank you very much!
But I doubt that morphing wings will be used for airplanes in the future.
The construction and production of the F14 showed that this kind of complexity in wings would impose enormous challenges on the manufacturing process.
The coolest aspect of birds is not to fly but to land on tree branches for that there is the US Air Force and their spectacular research work spanning multiple decades
Hummingbird and insect drones have been a thing for a while now and they can hover
everything can hover… it's just a question of having enough thrust. Point it straight upward and that thing will hover! In fact… that's what a quadcopter does and why it's so inefficient.
I would argue against the fact that nature is the holy grail in robotics. For instance a simple thing like a wheel Is not to be found anywhere in nature for a moving purposes, but in reality it proves to be really effective on a certain terrain
I was wondering about bird velocity given their pose, with pose available through video and AI. As a research field to learn about flight characteristics
"They can fit into a flock seamlessly"
*_Ah yes, Franken-Hover-Turkeys are well known creatures, a bit strange but overall gentle creatures._*
It was a good an informative video though, I've known about boundary-layer manipulation in aircraft for a while, the B2 bomber uses electromagnetic skin effects to dampen noise and induce more laminar airflow to the point that in silent mode you can't hear its engines (it does not have ionic _thrust_ but it does have ionic flow control) but I knew there was going to be lots of promise in moving wing designs, one shape is not ideal for all airspeeds, a wing that can adjust to the airspeed is ideal.
After a long time I found something good to see on the internet, I am trapped in shorts , reel ai system that only shows that content that keeps you scrolling and damage your brain but I like your videos bro it's good content for my brain
2:26 attach a little survival kit (fire starter, emergency blanket, etc) and that’d be great to help out hikers who are out of reach
GPS
This is a great video. I have been watching the neighbor's crowd with this same curiosity into how they're maneuvering. Also, why do they never get winded from their thrust and lift.
Just as a point of clarification here: The fact that the analyses they used were "Bayesian" versus "Gaussian/frequentist" isn't actually important here. Bayes vs Gauss addresses probability from two different philosophical perspectives whose differences are important, but probably not specifically here.
More, the analysis used to find the optimal wing configuration here looked to be some kind of Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) technique or something very similar. My main point is that both Bayesian and Gaussian statistics can perform these kinds of analyses just fine and will often come up with very similar results.
TLDR: The analyses they used were some sort of MLE-type analysis that CAN be done a Bayesian way but the Bayesian aspect of it is not what is important here.
(Final concession: Most people would agree that, in almost all cases, Bayesian methods will provide results of equal or better value than Gaussian ones, but almost all of our traditional stats are Gaussian and we're still in the transition to Bayesian stats as a whole)
It started with learning form nature and ended with the living dead cyborg monsters
Went from joking birds are drones, to joking drones are birds in under a decade. Nice.
That stuffed turkey drone cracked me up!!😆
I guess all you need to have both abilities just add wings to standard drone and use two modes for flying, one with wings for efficiency and one with propellers for hovering and precision
its far more complex than that, because they have tried that and the wings make the hovering harder and the hovering propellers add drag for the winged flight.
so you get added complexity and weight while only haveing mimimal advantages.
Taxidermy drones is a terrifying concept. Proper Strike Eagles.
That morphing bird can be seen in EPFL's videos 4 years ago btw.
"فَتَبَارَکَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِینَ"
I can imagine something like the Ptero trans wing drone with Stow wings. It can tuck the wings back to VTOL like a V22 then fold out to fly in bird mode.
Wait a second. Imagine a sentry drone made of edible materials. When the task is completed or when its presence is about to be noticed, it disintegrate itself and the remains is eaten by birds and other animals.
Love your analysis and presentation. I point of order: I think you'll find that Floreano is pronounced FLOR-EE-AHH-NO not FLOREENO. Our English spelling and pronunciation mindset misreads what is there.
Birds also have a flexible spine and tilting head that allows them to distort the level airflow and center of balance while maneuvering or rolling. Similar to a high diver and the way they time different sections of a dive to adjust their tracking. These robots, though very cool, will never match birds until they feature and perfect these characteristics.
But to this day, no robot has a full and functioning spine... hmmm.
Binocular vision helps, as well.
Crazy cool stuff🔥 The military applications are insane💀
Edit: especially the flying turkey 😎
That is amazing. This coupled with some artificial muscles that would be something. Imagine just letting it grow more cells in areas of damage or structural fatigue.
Upping drone efficiency is of immense value for medical deliveries in the third world. There are already companies using fixed wing drones to move medical supplies back and forth in Africa over multi-km distances. Anything that makes their delivery craft more efficient literally leads to fractional human lives being saved.
Absolutely, although I doubt thus kind of design will be used on those areas, one other benefit of the fixed wing is the reduced number of moving parts and increased rigidity which allows it to be slingshot and means that less backup parts need to be kept on site for repairs. But I could imagine in areas where slingshotting isn't an option this would be great.
This is what the Dune ornithopters were meant to look like
Finally this company gets some recognisation.
I can't wait for the gliding brid shaped drone with c4 straped to it. At least with current drones, are loud
For subsonic flight this could be real applicable. For Faster then sound flight (this idea has already been tested and proven way to expensive and dangerous.) There is a reason nobody does Swing wing planes anymore. But I could see this being huge for efficiency and comfort reasons with regards to Mass air travel.
Can’t wait to see them „land“ on a T72 😂
So there ar goverment bird drones nouw ??