Bird sized airplane to fly li...( Nine Dutch Aerospace Engineering stude...)

Nine Dutch Aerospace Engineering students at the Delft University of Technology, together with the Department of Experimental Zoology of Wageningen University, designed the RoboSwift. RoboSwift is a micro airplane fitted with shape shifting wings, inspired by the common swift, one of natures most efficient flyers. The micro airplane will have unprecedented wing characteristics; the wing geometry as well as the wing surface area can be adjusted continuously. This makes RoboSwift more maneuverable and efficient. Resembling the common swift, RoboSwift will be able to go undetected while using its three micro cameras to perform surveillance on vehicles and people on the ground. Furthermore, it can be employed to observe swifts in flight, thus enabling new biological research.

The RoboSwift team presented the design on the yearly Design Synthesis symposium at TU Delft. The team will build the high-tech micro airplane in the following months; it is expected to fly in January 2008. The student team will build three RoboSwifts to participate in March 2008 in the First American-Asian Micro Air Vehicle competition in India.

Morphing

RoboSwift will have a span of 50 cm span and 80 grams weight. It can follow a group of swifts up to 20 minutes and perform ground surveillance up to one hour thanks to its lithium-polymer batteries that power the electromotor, which drives a propeller. The propeller folds back during gliding to minimize air drag. The unique morphing-wing design features are taken from the swift. Morphing means the wings can be swept back in flight by folding feathers over each other, thus changing the wing shape and reducing the wing surface area. RoboSwift also steers by morphing its wings. Doing so, the micro airplane can perform optimally, flying efficiently and highly maneuverable at very high and very low speeds, just like the swift. The students found out that using only four feathers, much less than the bird uses
'"/>

Contact: David Lentink
david.lentink@wur.nl
31-645-434-032
Delft University of Technology
18-Jul-2007