Swiss team creates bird robot that jumps to take flight
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Swiss team creates bird robot that jumps to take flight
A team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has created a drone capable of walking, hopping and jumping into the air using bird-like legs. Thanks to this innovation, winged drones could access a wider variety of environments.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
RAVEN (Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments) is inspired by birds such as corvids, which often alternate their movements between the air and the ground, EPFL said in a press release on Friday.
The robotic legs enable the craft to fly autonomously in environments previously inaccessible to winged drones. “Birds can alternate between walking and running to take off or land, without the aid of a runway or launcher. Engineering platforms for such movements are still lacking in robotics,” said Won Dong Shin, a PhD student at EPFL’s Intelligent Systems Laboratory.
Won Dong Shin designed a pair of customised, multifunctional bird legs for this fixed-wing drone. He used a combination of mathematical models, computer simulations and experimental iterations to achieve a balance between the complexity of the legs and the overall weight of the drone (620g).
The resulting leg holds the heaviest components close to the body, while a combination of springs and motors mimics the powerful tendons and muscles of birds, according to the work published this week in the journal Nature.
Walk, climb and jump
Earlier robots designed to walk were too heavy to jump, while those created to leap had no feet suitable for walking. RAVEN’s design enables it to walk, climb over holes and jump on a raised surface 26 centimetres high.
+ Evolving drone warfare sparks re-think in Swiss army
The scientists also experimented with different flight modes, including standing and free-fall. They found that jumping for flight made the most efficient use of both kinetic energy (speed) and potential energy (height gain).
These results offer a lightweight design for winged drones that can travel over rough terrain and take off from confined areas without human intervention, notes EPFL.
Landing still remains to be mastered. The team is working on improving the design and control of the legs to enable the craft to land in different environments. American scientists also contributed to this work.
External Content
Translated from French by DeepL/ts
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.