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World’s first hummingbird-like unmanned aircraft system takes flight
- koops 16y agoIt won't take long before this gets weaponized. Then safety as well as privacy will suffer mightily.
- lukifer 16y agoIt's difficult to name a technology of which this is not true.
- huertanix 16y agoAnyone know its battery life? I'd think at least 20 minutes of flight time would be needed to take this from expensive cat-toy to a surveillance tool.
- ph0rque 16y agoAt least 11 minutes (DARPA requirement mentioned in the article).
- slavak 16y agoThat is the first ornithopter that I've seen that seems to demonstrate flying capabilities similar to those of birds - something which might be very -other than- only for the curiosity of a plane that flies by flapping its wings. Color me excited.
- Detrus 16y agoReal hummingbirds are the most energy intensive birds. They have a very low margin for error, a few hours without feeding at best. http://www.blurtit.com/q890088.html http://www.blurtit.com/q890088.html "A 4-gram hummingbird has a basic metabolic rate of 1,400 calories per gram. In repose, a hummingbird's metabolism rate is 25 times that of a domestic fowl. If a person had such a high metabolic rate, he would have to eat twice his body weight daily, his temperature would be 750 degrees F, and he would consume 155,000 calories per day." It's probably marginally better than helicopters.
- rflrob 16y agoI think it's neat how, at times in the second video, the wings are phased with the camera, so it looks like they are completely stationary.