Flocking Drones UAV: Nature inspires future developments - Video

Biologically-inspired flapping-wing robots are shown. 

Image courtesy Pakpong Chirarattananon.

Researchers have been taking tips from nature to build the next generation of flying robots.

Based on the mechanisms adopted by birds, bats, insects and snakes, 14 distinguished research teams have developed solutions to some of the common problems that drones could be faced with when navigating through an urban environment and performing novel tasks for the benefit of society.

Whether this is avoiding obstacles, picking up and delivering items or improving the take-off and landing on tricky surfaces, it is hoped the solutions can lead to the deployment of drones in complex urban environments in a number of different ways, from military surveillance and search and rescue efforts to flying camera phones and reliable courier services. For this, drones need exquisite flight control.

The research teams have presented their work, 23 May, in a special issue of IOP Publishing's journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, devoted to bio-inspired flight control.

The first small drones have already been used in search and rescue operations to investigate difficult-to-reach and hazardous areas, such as in Fukushima, Japan.

A video by the COLLMOT Robotic Research Project showing a group of drones flying autonomously across a field.

A research team from Hungary believe these efforts could be improved if robots are able to work in tandem, and have developed an algorithm that allows a number of drones to fly together like a flock of birds.

The effectiveness of the algorithm was demonstrated by using it to direct the movements of a flock of nine individual quadcopters whilst they followed a moving car.

While this collective movement may be helpful when searching vast expanses of land, a group of researchers from Harvard University have developed a millimetre-sized drone with a view to using it to explore extremely cramped and tight spaces.

The microrobot they designed, which was the size of a one cent coin, could take off and land and hover in the air for sustained periods of time.

In their new paper, the researchers have demonstrated the first simple, fly-like manoeuvres. In the future, millimetre-sized drones could also be used in assisted agriculture pollination and reconnaissance, and could aid future studies of insect flight.

Once deployed into the real world, drones will be faced with the extremely tricky task of dealing with the elements, which could be extreme heat, the freezing cold, torrential rain or thunderstorms.

The most challenging problem for airborne robots will be strong winds and whirlwinds, which a research team, from the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill, University of California and The Johns Hopkins University, have begun to tackle by studying the hawk moth.

In their study, the researchers flew hawk moths through a number of different whirlwind conditions in a vortex chamber, carefully examining the mechanisms that the hawk moths used to successfully regain flight control.

The whole collection of related papers can be downloaded for free from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-3190/9/2

Progress Soyuz-2.1V lightweight carrier rocket: Launch Delayed

The new Soyuz-2.1V lightweight carrier rocket is a modernised version of the Soyuz-2.1B, from which the Soyuz rocket's trademark four external booster rockets have been removed.

Credit: RIA Novosti

The first launch of Russia's new Soyuz-2.1V lightweight carrier rocket, scheduled for early 2013, is now likely to be delayed until the second half of 2013, its maker Progress said on Thursday.

"The first launch of the Soyuz-2.1V rocket has been preliminarily scheduled for the second half of this year," Progress design bureau's general director Alexander Kirilin said, without specifying the reasons for the delay.

Russia originally planned to launch the first Soyuz-2.1V in October but that was postponed after a failed ground test of its first-stage engines in August, Progress said.

Last December, the commander of Russia's Aerospace Defense Forces, Maj.Gen. Alexander Golovko, said the first Soyuz 2.1V launch would take place at the start of 2013.

The new rocket is a modernized version of the Soyuz-2.1B, from which the Soyuz rocket's trademark four external booster rockets have been removed.

The first stage is equipped with a rocket engine derived from the legendary NK-33, according to the Plesetsk cosmodrome website.

The NK-33 was developed in the 1970's to carry Soviet cosmonauts to the moon onboard the giant N1 rocket.

The rocket is capable of delivering a payload of up to 2.85 tons (6,300 lb) to an orbit at an altitude of 200 kilometers (120 miles), Progress claims.

Soyuz-2.1V launches may be carried out from upgraded launch pads at the Plesetsk Space Center in northwestern Russia and the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan.

Festo - Flying SmartBird Video

Festo has a fairly fascinating, frankly fantastical, and frequently full-on fabulous history with the robotic systems that they develop in partnership with universities and research groups as part of their Bionic Learning Network.

In the past, we've seen flying penguins and jellyfish, as well as bio-inspired manipulators like this one.

Today, Festo has unveiled their 2011 Bionic Learning Network projects, the most awesome of which is definitely SmartBird. Watch it fly:



Unlike many of Festo's flying robots, SmartBird doesn't appear to rely on lifting gas at all. It weighs less than half a kilo, and is capable of autonomous take-off, flight, and landing using just its two meter-long wings.

SmartBird is modelled very closely on the herring gull, and controls itself the same way birds do, by twisting its body, wings, and tail. For example, if you look closely in the video, you can see SmartBird turning its head to steer.

Inflatable Heat Shield Tested in Space

An inflatable heat shield was successfully tested on Monday, demonstrating for the first time that these light, flexible devices could be used to protect spacecraft on their way through planets' atmospheres.

Other spacecraft use solid heat shields that either drop away as the spacecraft near the surface, as happened with the Mars rovers, or gradually erode in the atmosphere.

These solid shields are heavy, and their weight limits the mass of the spacecraft they are designed to protect, since both must launch on the same rocket. Their physical size is also limiting, since the shields must be small enough to fit inside a launch rocket.

Balloon-like shields can in theory sidestep these issues, since they are lightweight and can inflate to relatively large sizes after being folded up during launch. These weight and size savings allow for heavier spacecraft payloads.

The new shield, called the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE), launched aboard a small rocket on Monday morning from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. It was the first successful test of an inflatable heat shield.

"We're totally thrilled with the data results we've received," says project manager Mary-Beth Wusk of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.