A the robot which can leap into flight like a bird could eliminate the need for runways for small fixed-wing drones.
Birds use the powerful explosive force generated by their legs to leap into the air and begin flying, but building a robot that can withstand the intense acceleration and forces has proven difficult.
now, Won Dong Shin won At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and colleagues have built a flying robot called RAVEN that can start flying, walk, jump and jump into the air with legs that work like a bird.
“Fixed-wing vehicles, like airplanes, always need a runway or launcher, which is not found everywhere. It really takes designated infrastructure to take off an airplane,” says Shin. “But if you see a bird, they walk, jump and take off. For them, it is quite simple. They don’t need outside help.”
Unlike the legs of real birds, which have joints at the hip, knee and ankle, RAVEN’s legs have only two joints, at the hip and knee, which are powered by motors. There is also a spring in each foot that can store and release elastic energy. Using fewer components meant that Shin and his team could weigh RAVEN at around 600 grams, similar to a crow.
In indoor tests, RAVEN can jump almost half a meter into the air and 2.4 meters per second – which is a similar speed to birds of the same size – at which point a propeller takes over. Being able to launch from anywhere could make RAVEN useful in disaster relief missions where ordinary fixed-wing drones can’t land or take off, Shin says. First, however, the team will need to develop RAVEN’s ability to land safely, he says.
“We’ve seen a lot of work on flying robots that land on people, but not a lot of people have focused on taking off with their legs,” he says. Raphael ZuffereyAlso at EPFL, who was not involved with the work. “I think we’ll see the two areas – landing, or take-off and take-off – come together on a single platform, where we’ll be able to fly these robots, detect a branch, land there, recover, do a mission. and then take off”.
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