14 DAY TRIAL // There are lots of things that city dwellers never get to see, especially in the animal kingdom, but there might be an alternative to at least one creature in the near future, if those who are tasked with providing entertainment figure a dragonfly drone is a good idea.
Dragonflies are very interesting insects usually found around rivers. They have rod-like bodies and two sets of wings.
Festo Corporation studied the way dragonflies fly and created a new drone based on the information.
Called BionicOpter, it is a smartphone-controlled drone that mimics the real thing, even though it is huge in comparison. More specifically, it is 17.3 inches long.
Even in such size, it can hover and fly all over the place, although looking at things from an objective perspective, the thing looks more like it's swimming than flying.
At any rate, the wings, which are made of carbon fiber and foil, beat at up to 20 times per second.
“With the remote-controlled dragonfly, Festo demonstrates wireless real-time communication, a continuous exchange of information, as well as the ability to combine different sensor evaluations and identify complex events and critical states,” the company says.
We do not know how long the battery lasts, but since this is an ARM-based device, we imagine it can survive for a few hours.
Speaking of the hardware, it is tuned in such a way that it automatically adjusts flight path. Otherwise, the dragonfly would lose stability and crash.
Meanwhile, the smartphone dictates shared flapping frequency, the twisting of the individual wings (each wing has its own amplitude controller) and the tilt (determined thrust direction).
All in all, it should be possible for the Festo BionicOpter to assume any position in space.
Festo did not say what sorts of applications the overgrown fly is good for. While the fly can be graceful in its hovering and glides, it isn't exactly inconspicuous, so surveillance is right out.
