Back in 2018, we heard how UK startup Volerian was planning to build a VTOL aircraft with a unique flapping-wing propulsion system. Although we've yet to see a functioning model of that vehicle, the ...

Bio-inspired wind sensing using strain sensors on flexible wings could revolutionize robotic flight control strategy. Researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo have developed a method to detect wind ...

Grasshopper’s gangly, awkward flight could solve the biggest power problems in robotics. Standard micro-bots are modeled ...

Tiny flying robots have always faced a brutal trade-off between agility and battery life, burning through power just to stay ...

Airbus is spreading its wings and trialing some groundbreaking green technologies. The European aircraft builder is set to begin testing new aircraft wings within months, as reported by The Sunday ...

France's military is exploring bird-mimicking, flapping-wing drones (BIOFLY project) to enhance stealth, camouflage, and confuse adversaries in military applications. The BIOFLY drone, weighing about ...

We've seen autonomous MAVs (micro air vehicles) before, and we've seen flapping-wing MAVs before. According to a group of researchers from the Netherlands' Delft University of Technology, however, ...

Birds fly more efficiently by folding their wings during the upstroke, according to a recent study. The results could mean that wing-folding is the next step in increasing the propulsive and ...

Since the dawn of aviation, birds have been an inspiration for visionaries of flight. And now, engineers are once again looking to feathered friends to inspire the next generation of aircraft wings.

Secondly, authors decoupled and analyzed the complex coupled wing movements into 5 kinematic parameters: flapping, twisting, sweeping, folding, and bending. A wing model was constructed to conduct ...