0.8 kg heavy Bird-like robot with novel wing system achieves self-takeoff and low-speed flight

Amazing stuff!

"In 2021, a group of scientists from China engineered the RoboFalcon—a bird-inspired flapping-wing robot with a newly engineered mechanism made to drive bat-style morphing wings capable of flight. While this bio-inspired robot performed well at a cruising speed, it was not capable of flying at lower speeds or achieving takeoff without assistance.

Now, the same group of researchers has upgraded their design. Their work, published in Science Advances, describes the RoboFalcon 2.0, which incorporates an 800 g body and reconfigurable mechanisms in the wings to couple flapping, sweeping, and folding in one wingbeat. This more sophisticated wing system allows the RoboFalcon 2.0 to achieve takeoff without assistance and to stay in flight at lower speeds. ..."

From the abstract:

"Flying vertebrates use specialized wingbeat kinematics in hovering, takeoff, and landing, featuring ventrally anterior downstrokes and aerodynamically inactive upstrokes to enhance aerodynamic characteristics at low airspeeds. Rarely implemented in robotics, this inspired RoboFalcon2.0, a flapping-wing robot with reconfigurable mechanisms performing bioinspired flap-sweep-fold (FSF) motion for controlled bird-style takeoff.

FSF couples flapping, sweeping, and folding within a single wingbeat cycle, mimicking vertebrate slow-flight kinematics.

Wind tunnel tests demonstrate that sweeping amplitude modulates lift and pitching moment in FSF motion.

Computational fluid dynamics simulations reveal that FSF’s aerodynamic effects correlate with leading-edge vortex strength and pressure center location.

Dynamics simulations analyze pitch control during takeoff. 

Real-world flights validate RoboFalcon2.0’s self-takeoff capability. 

This work advances avian-inspired robotics through vertebrate-like actuation principles, enabling more biomimetic flapping-wing designs."

Bird-like robot with novel wing system achieves self-takeoff and low-speed flight

Flapping-wing robot achieves bird-style self-takeoff by adopting reconfigurable mechanisms (open access)

Flapping-wing robot achieves bird-style self-takeoff by adopting reconfigurable mechanisms.

Fig. 1. Typical bird wingbeat pattern in slow flight.

Fig. 3. Platform and mechanical design of RoboFalcon2.0.