Skip to main content

Robotic raptors that look and fly like the real thing


Birds that stray into the paths of aircraft, eat crops, or spread disease from foraging in large numbers at landfills are, at best, a nuisance and, at worst, downright dangerous. Over the years people have tried everything from scaring them away with loud noises to trapping them – all with varying results. Now a designer from the Netherlands has come up with robotic birds of prey that look and fly exactly like the real thing.
Dubbed "Robirds," these flying raptor creations are the brainchild of Nico Nijenhuis from Clear Flight Solutions. The remotely controlled, realistic looking birds actually flap their wings to fly, and in a way that makes them remarkably similar to the real thing. According to the designers, this means that their artificial predator birds can fly in and around problem areas, encouraging nuisance birds to leave by exploiting the natural instinct of birds to avoid predators, particularly through silhouette and wing movement recognition.
In addition, the creators claim that – as the system is fully controllable by an operator on the ground with a remote control – especially difficult birds can be persuaded to leave by singling them out with the Robird to chase them away.
The practical upshot of all this is that – according to the designers – targeted bird populations learn to avoid what they perceive as the active stalking grounds of a bird of prey and that bird numbers in the areas of Robird operation drop by 50 percent or more. As a result of continued operations, the creators also claim that Robirds virtually eliminate the chances of nuisance bird flock habituation in the long term.
With a body length up to 58 cm (23 in) and a wingspan of 120 cm (47 in), the peregrine falcon model is capable of reaching 80 km/h (50 mph) and is designed to act as a deterrent to birds of up to 3 kg (6.6 lb). However, the eagle model is even more intimidating. With a body length nearly twice the length of the falcon and wingspan of up to 220 cm (86 in), this robot bird is designed to scare off any type of bird and would probably scare the odd human or two as well.
Though currently still wirelessly controlled by a human on the ground – and not quite as smart as a Festo seagull – plans are afoot to make the Robirds autonomous, with the company pursuing this goal with business and technical partners and trials currently underway that are set to continue into 2015.
The short video below demonstrates a Robird in flight, demonstrating its striking similarity to the real thing.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 URLs to Find Out What Google Knows About You

Google is much more than just a search giant. It is also home to many of your favorite products: Gmail, YouTube, and Chrome, just to name a few. Apart from that, it also offers many products to help you  keep track of your data . Most of these are  hidden deep  inside the My Account dashboard, which many users don’t really know of. These hidden tools  may reveal interesting details  about your usage of Google’s many services. We’ve compiled a list of important Google URLs of some  hidden tools  that carry information of what you did with Google, mostly from the searches that you have made on their many products, the voice searches and typed out Google searches that you have made. Are you ready to  find out what how Google knows about you ? 1.  Google Dashboard Google Dashboard offers  transparency and control over the personal data stored with your Google Account. You can  view  and  manage the data gener...

Edible water balloons that could get rid of the need for plastic bottles

In case you didn’t know, bottled water is destroying the planet. We know that we need to be drinking plenty of water. It’s important. But the plastic bottles they’re sold in are terrible for the environment. One solution is using reusable bottles that you can fill from any nearby taps instead of buying a new bottle each time. Another solution is much more exciting. A group of engineers from Skipping Rocks Lab have developed a wonderful thing called The Ooho!. It’s a globe filled water that you can pop in your mouth whole. The outer shell is made of algae, so it’s edible and biodegradable. Meaning there’s no need for packaging or plastic – the globes of water are self-contained and ready to consume. Exciting, right? Plus they’re wobbly and they look cool, which is always a bonus. The team have now created a crowdfunding page to make their creation available to the public, with goals of selling The Ooho! at festival and marathons within the next 12 m...

Casio PicapiCamera iPhone app is the world's first to use visible light communication technology

PicapiCamera, developed by Casio, is the world's first iPhone app which uses visible light communication technology. To send and receive data via the app, the message to be sent is encoded using red, green and blue flashing lights and shown on the display. The receiver points their iPhone at the flashing lights and the data is transferred. "There are two approaches to communication using visible light. One is to embed data in the light from illumination sources, by turning it on and off at high speed, as a natural way of communicating information. With that approach, devices use photodiodes. The other approach involves image sensors. A device that captures light is a camera, so the idea is to relate light obtained by a camera to information. We're using the camera approach - visible light communication through image sensors." "When exchanging addresses, this system can send addresses to up to five people, rather than just one-to-one." "If yo...