Aircraft Will Have Surveillance, Research Uses
Nine Dutch Aerospace Engineering students at the Delft
University of Technology in the Netherlands, together with the
Department of Experimental Zoology of Wageningen University have
designed a tiny airplane fitted with shape- shifting wings,
inspired by the common swift, one of nature's most efficient
flyers.
Dubbed the RoboSwift, the aircraft will have unprecedented wing
characteristics. The wing geometry as well as the wing surface area
can be adjusted continuously to make it more maneuverable and
efficient.
Resembling the common swift, RoboSwift will be able to go
undetected while using its three micro cameras to perform
surveillance on vehicles and people on the ground. It can be
employed to observe swifts in flight, thus enabling new biological
research, as well, according to the University.
The RoboSwift team presented the design to the yearly Design
Synthesis symposium at TU Delft. The high-tech micro airplane is
currently under construction and is expected to fly in January
2008. The student team will build three RoboSwifts to participate
in the First American-Asian Micro Air Vehicle competition in India
in March 2008.
The aircraft will have a wingspan of about 19 inches and weigh
nearly three ounces. It will be able to follow a group of swifts up
to 20 minutes and perform ground surveillance up to one hour thanks
to its lithium-polymer batteries that power the electromotor, which
drives the propeller. The propeller folds back during gliding to
minimize air drag.
The morphing-wing design features are taken from the actual
swift. The wings can be swept back in flight by folding feathers
over each other thus changing the wing shape and reducing the wing
surface area.
The students discovered that using only four feathers, much less
than the bird uses, provides the wing with sufficient morphing
capacity and is what makes actual production of the design
feasible. Steering RoboSwift is done by asymmetrically morphing the
wings. Sweeping one wing back further than the other creates a
difference in lift on the wings that is used to roll and turn the
micro plane in the air.
Although a few military aircraft -- such as the F-14 Tomcat and
the English-German Tornado -- are equipped with so-called swing
wings, none of these aircraft significantly reduces the surface
area of the wing, thus missing out on the benefits made possible by
morphing.