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Festo Demonstrates Artificial Bird

Written by Philip Proefrock on 27/03/11

FestoBird

Animal roboticists Festo have come up with the latest in their series of robots which mimic animal locomotion and activity. We've seen a number of compelling demonstrations from them over the past several years, and the latest is certainly impressive: an artificial bird.

The interest in these, besides just looking incredibly cool, is in the development of biomimetic processes. Animals have evolved very efficient methods of locomotion and activity, and these abilities can be applied to automated processes.

SmartBird is an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. With SmartBird, Festo has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds – one of the oldest dreams of humankind.

The video shows just what they have accomplished:

Previously on EcoGeek:
Flying Manta Ray Blimp is Extremely Awesome
Flying Jellyfish Exudes Efficiency

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Amazing!
written by Darren Haynes, March 28, 2011
Wow that was awesome to watch. From a distance you would probably not be able to tell that it is not a real bird. Very impressive mechanics.
How can we be sure these birds won't be used by terrorists?, Low-rated comment [Show]
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Festo...
written by Niels, March 28, 2011
I'm wondering if it runs on compressed air smilies/grin.gif
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Village Idiot
written by James38, April 06, 2011
Umm, lets see - if they self-reproduce, sing beautifully, eat annoying bugs and are programmed not to poop on your windshield, I would say you really have something. I was hoping to see it take off and land. Since that was not shown I suspect those parts are still a little inelegant. Flies pretty good, though. Impressing and rather beautiful. Scale it up to airliner size, how efficient would it be? Oh yes, the landing part.....
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...
written by Michael, April 06, 2011
Very cool. I notice it must keep working and flapping it's wings though. As of yet, it doesn't seem to have the ability to soar, or to seek out thermals and stay afloat on them.
I bet that'll come in time, though.
Either way, great stuff!
0
very cool.
written by sarah, April 08, 2011
makes me think a bit of that cloth covered car... was it a bmw? flexible lightweight.

This bird is really cool and yes very lifelike movements. made me think of a cross between a pigeon and a flying dinosaur.

I wonder how it hold up in a breeze...also wonder like Michael if it can eventually coast.
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...
written by Belinda, April 15, 2011
I wonder if real birds would regard it as a real bird? That could have implications such as having a flock of birds follow it maybe to lead them to better migratory routes or something along those lines.
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Awesome Video
written by Bryan Patterson, May 20, 2013
It was a beautiful watching that "bird" fly. They did a great job designing and making it. Like others have said above, I would also be interested to see if the bird can float smilies/cool.gif
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Beautifully Done
written by Josh Stevenson, May 21, 2013
I really enjoyed watching that bird on the video - nice share. Must have taken them a lot of work to develop the mimicking and bio-mechanics involved here. Maybe they can design one that runs of solar panels and just let fly free smilies/grin.gif

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