Shape-shifting Robot Will Mimic the Swiftest Flying Birds

A new prototype robot will mimic the shape-shifting swifts, the most agile flying birds in the world and will infiltrate their flocks to spy on them with miniature cameras. There is hope that they will go unnoticed by real birds.

Swifts (Apus apus) are some of the most efficient birds when it comes to active flying (flapping the wings instead of just gliding). They spend nearly their entire lives in the air, eating, mating and even sleeping in flight. The common swift travels 4.5 million kilometers (2.8 million miles) in its lifetime, roughly the same as six round trips to the Moon or 100 times around the Earth.

The new bird-like robot will have the same wing-morphing abilities and will hopefully infiltrate flocks of swifts to help scientists gain a first glimpse of how the swift flies in its natural environment. The robot will be equipped with twin miniature cameras to transmit three-dimensional video, giving people a birds-eye view and allowing them to virtually fly with the real champions.

"They are really agile and to study them you have really got to fly close to them - and look like them," says David Lentink of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, head of the project. "Some birds will attack any model aircraft that comes close," he adds.

Probably the biggest problem of the new robot will be overcoming the main design feature of swifts, their ability to change the shape of their wings to improve the efficiency of their glide or to make faster turns.

If the experiment succeeds, it will open the way for new aeronautic applications, making morphing wings the newest trend in aviation. This innovative design will make excellent surveillance and espionage drones but could also reduce fuel consumption in large airliners of the future.