First Successful Perching Of A Robotic Bird

Not a bird and not perching... the person caught it.

If it was actually perching, the person who caught it would not have had to move their hand.

And perching requires feet. How many birds have you seen that land on their belly?
 
So when will they paint it in Lazerbeak's color scheme and have that guy dress up as Megatron?
 
Neat, but yeah... call me when it doesn't require a system of 30 cameras and a perch that moves a foot to help it land flat on its underside. I presume his glove isn't made of Velcro or something. Simple paper airplanes can do this same thing if the tester is allowed a foot of hand movement, albeit less reliably.

Now if it used a single camera mounted on the plane w/ an attached micro-controller and could do this, even if it landed on its belly, I would be impressed. Originally I thought this was going to be a continuation of the military spy camera birds on power lines project.
 
Marlfox said:
Neat, but yeah... call me when it doesn't require a system of 30 cameras and a perch that moves a foot to help it land flat on its underside. I presume his glove isn't made of Velcro or something. Simple paper airplanes can do this same thing if the tester is allowed a foot of hand movement, albeit less reliably.

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Except that this is mimicking a bird and the wings are flapping. Maneuering it to land on the hand requires a control system and aerodynamics more advanced than you can imagine so yes it is quite impressive.
 
Except the wings aren't flapping. It's just gliding and they move a bit to steer.

It's about as cool as the "strutting" robot that was posted a while back. You know the one that strutted about as well as a one legged pimp with polio.
 
Kardonxt said:
Except the wings aren't flapping. It's just gliding and they move a bit to steer.

It's about as cool as the "strutting" robot that was posted a while back. You know the one that strutted about as well as a one legged pimp with polio.
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Wait, are you implying pimp robots are somehow worthless?
 
NO pimp robots would be worth their weight in gold.

I'm just saying that this "perching" glider and the barely walking let alone "strutting" leg and torso robot are not very cool.
 
I think some people here are missing what this is actually showing. It isn't about the person's hand or where it lands, but how the glider decelerates before it lands. Compared to your typical glider landing, this is a very "outside the box" approach.
 
It's kinda cool, it will move into the very cool if it can be done outside and with the guy moving around a bit (plus longer fall/flight.) Then we could really see it stalking.... err finding the landing area.
 
Must not be sponsored by the military... who needs to land when you can just self-destruct into your target?

I'm not that impressed actually. They already have RC planes with flapping wings that fly similarly to birds. Kinda spooky looking really. And it certainly looks like the "catcher" has a velcro mitt on. I'd imagine to be able to effectively stall the aircraft onto a landing zone, the weight would have to be light. Thus no propulsion system, and similarly, it's probably exceptionally fragile. Why is why Velcro would be invaluable.

Don't moderm UAV's simply detatch the wing once they're low/slow enough?
 
c4v3man said:
I'm not that impressed actually. They already have RC planes with flapping wings that fly similarly to birds.
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You're missing the point. This device is guiding itself to the hand and slowing its speed so as to land on/near enough to said hand. What wing-flapping RC plane have you seen on store shelves that does this autonomously?
 
Judging from the replies here, I am impressed at two things: 1.) The fact this is an impressive feat. 2.) The apparent fact that 87% of the folks who posted negative comments about it in this thread can actually build something better themselves.
 
I wonder if it will spaz out and self destruct if a gust of wind flips it over while gliding.
 
Marlfox said:
Neat, but yeah... call me when it doesn't require a system of 30 cameras and a perch that moves a foot to help it land flat on its underside. I presume his glove isn't made of Velcro or something. Simple paper airplanes can do this same thing if the tester is allowed a foot of hand movement, albeit less reliably.

Now if it used a single camera mounted on the plane w/ an attached micro-controller and could do this, even if it landed on its belly, I would be impressed. Originally I thought this was going to be a continuation of the military spy camera birds on power lines project.
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The demonstration here showed a soft landing. A normal plane would have gone headlong into the hand (i.e. crash). If the hand wasn't there the 'bird' would have 'landed' on the ground since it had effectively cancelled all forward momentum just before touchdown. A plane would have slid across the floor dragging its entrails.

There had been RC planes that have been demonstrated this before were slowing themselves by facing the wind and even then could land anywhere within a 50 foot area from when the pilot started the maneuver (provided the pilot doesn't crash it). If he tries that maneuver when there's not enough wind, the plane will drop like a rock because you are effectively stalling the plane the moment you started. The robot in the video did it with no wind, and within a foot of its target. That's impressive.
 
Sly said:
The robot in the video did it with no wind, and within a foot of its target. That's impressive.
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Indeed. What's even more impressive is the simple feedback system they're using to control the actuators. This may not seem like much to some of the naysayers, but consider how long airplanes have been around and how they're all still having to use runways for takeoff and landing with very, very few exceptions. Planes tend to be noisy as well. Consider how quiet the flapping flight of birds is in comparison. A drone that can glide and perch to land is silent, and one that can flap to fly instead of using propellers or jets is very stealthy.
 
GaryJohnson said:
You mean like the Festo SmartBird or the X-TIM Avitron?
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It doesn't appear that either of those products can autonomously perch. The Avitron appears to be fully radio-controlled, and not autonomous at all, from what I can see.
 
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