RoboSwift Micro Air Vehicle

Posted 1 Aug 2007 at 22:09 UTC by steve

Shawn H. Cory pointed out a recent story we hadn't noticed about the RoboSwift, a bio-inspired morphing-wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). The RoboSwift press release sums things up nicely: "Aerospace engineering students at TU Delft, together with the Department of Experimental Zoology of Wageningen University designed the RoboSwift. RoboSwift is a micro airplane fitted with movable wings, inspired by the common swift, one of nature’s most efficient flyers. The micro airplane will have unprecedented wing characteristics; the wing geometry as well as the wing surface area can be adjusted continuously. This makes RoboSwift more maneuverable and efficient. Resembling the common swift, RoboSwift will be able to go undetected while using its three micro cameras to perform surveillance on vehicles and people on the ground. Furthermore, it can be employed to observe swifts in flight, thus enabling new biological research." For more details see the TU Delft news release or the Wageningen University news release.