Bird-inspired drone uses legs to walk and jump into the air
12 comments
·January 7, 2025litenboll
lynguist
> the big thing was the jumping itself, which does not require complex bird anatomy necessarily
No, this is exactly the opposite. The jumping requires exactly this specific anatomy for so many reasons. It stores energy in the joints, it has a specific balance, the jumping works at multiple angles, etc, etc. You can’t do better than that for this specific purpose.
ivell
Wheels need a reasonably flat surface to be efficient. Walking is more efficient than flying for short distances..
scripturial
Avoiding cheap surveillance technologies seems like a big deal. Although I assume once the government works out what you can do with it, it’ll become illegal pretty quickly. I assume this research will attract DOD grant funding pretty quickly. Students have to eat somehow.
pixxel
Spy drones than mimic birds.
9dev
It’s going to get interesting when the conspiracy theory becomes reality. Imagine the future historians browsing the Reddit archives going like, ”they knew!!“
oefrha
What conspiracy? CIA had spy pigeons among other animals half a century ago, which is public info by now.[1]
They are very proud of it too.
> While many of the animal programs studied by CIA were never deployed operationally—or failed for a variety of technical, logistical, or behavioral reasons—collectively they demonstrate the incredible innovation and creative thinking that has come to characterize everything that our Directorate of Science and Technology does.
[1] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/natural-spies-animals-in-e...
Super_Jambo
More likely that sensible mainstream journalists will laugh at people under Govt surveillance because they sound like the reddit conspiracy nuts from their youth...
DoingIsLearning
Worth pointing out that EPFL's PR release includes a picture of Won Dong Shin (the PhD that actually built it) as opposed to a picture of the lab's director as it sometimes happens in academia.
accurrent
THIS. Ive found good advisors push there students forward, mediocre ones tend to push themselves. Academic robotics is plagued with profs who do "everything".
chinathrow
The article contains an image of him.
guerrilla
Alright, we're getting there. Still feels like there's a very long way to go.
First thought when reading the title was that it will look very fragile and clumsy when walking (even real birds do) and that was confirmed by the first video. What's the purpose of actually mimicing bird legs and feet? Why not use something more simple like wheels on a board that has a spring for example? I expected the article to justify why, but to me it seems like the big thing was the jumping itself, which does not require complex bird anatomy necessarily. There's probably a good reason that I missed, but this feels like a too direct translation of the bird feature, unless the purpose is specifically to make it look and move like a real bird.