Autonomous bat bot weighs 93g, flies like a bat

mostlysignssomeportents:

A team of roboticists from Caltech and Urbana-Champaign have built a biomimetic “bat bot” that uses nine joints to deform a foot-wide wing membrane to achieve breathtaking aerial maneuvers.

Biomimicry is a tough row to hoe: the weird solutions that are optimized by evolution have strange complexities that we rarely completely understand. But starting with nature’s designs can yield amazing results – as with the Bat Bot, where the bat’s normal complement of 40 joints have been replaced with a mere 9.

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/02/autonomous-bat-bot-weighs-93g.html

Looks like a bat, but that’s a pretty steep glide…

The post Autonomous bat bot weighs 93g, flies like a bat appeared first on CJMoseley.co.uk.