PigeonBot: The Robot With Feathers To Fly Better

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  Say hello to the world's first biohybrid flying robot that has feathers. This is PigeonBot. It has the propeller, tail and fuselage of a modern aircraft, and the feathers and wing structure of a pigeon. 

  Via Smithsonian Mag
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  PigeonBot was designed by engineers at Stanford University and an article in Science Robotics announced it's existence to the world. We are actually wondering why it took this long to realize that feathers probably make things fly better. 

  Via Giphy
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  PigeonBot can't flap - it soars. It's mechanical skeleton has a few of the same features as a bird's wing, including 'wrists' and a 'finger' which evolved from dinosaurs. There are 20 feathers on each of the PigeonBot's wings - 40 in total - and they come from domestic pigeons called squab (which were already dead before their feathers were collected). 

  Via Smithsonian Mag
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  The engineers behind the project looked closely at what precise movements make contribute to the precise aeronautical movements of birds, and attempted to copied these features. They think much of the control birds have come from controlling the muscle in it's wrist or finger. You can see in the GIF above how PigeonBot's wing movements change as it soars in the sky. 

  Via Giphy
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  The benefit of creating flying robots is that they can be controlled to a degree that birds can never reach, even with training - you can't tell a bird to move it's finger. But can move the PigeonBot's finger. This alters the robot's speed, direction and angle of flying. 

  It's early days for the PigeonBot and there is much room for improvement. However, experts think this biology-inspired robot is taking us in a direction towards better drone and aircraft designs. Stay tuned. Perhaps airplanes will have feathers in the future. 

  
  

  Via Smithsonian Mag

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