Imitating insects: "Micro Air Vehicles"

Science & Technology Science & Nature
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All of our current flying technology; airplanes, helicopters, airships; is inspired by bird flight. It uses principles of flight as used by birds.
Principles of insect-flight are completely different from current understanding of flight principles. For example, according to present understanding, an insect should not be able to fly because it can not generate enough “lift”, which is a must for flight.

Now there are many universities studying the insect flights. They have already made prototypes of small air vehicles only a few inches long. These are called MICRO AIR VEHICLES. Example:
http://news.byu.edu/archive06-May-ornithop.aspx

Their size is going to reduce further with more research. In future there will be MAVs not bigger than a small bug.
See following animation. It is not much of a science fiction anymore:

By the way, Israel is very much interested in this technology. And we know that whatever Americans develop, Israelis get it the other day.

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Re: Imitating insects: "Micro Air Vehicles"

With summer in full flow and me and +1 being the kind who keep all windows and doors open all the time, sometimes we forget to shut the screen (jaali) and flies and mosquitos make their way in. Just yesterday was looking at a fly and wondering isn't it amazing how something this tiny can drag itself around with such a minimal reserve of energy. And i wondered if humans will ever even come close to replicating this.

Subhanallah.

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Re: Imitating insects: “Micro Air Vehicles”

Check out this video. It is about European conference on Micro Air Vehicles. These MAVs are a lot bigger than flies, but they still look quite real, especially the ones that flap their wings (starting from about 6 minutes in this video).

[googlevid][/googlevid]

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Re: Imitating insects: "Micro Air Vehicles"

Man will fly on his own.... in future........