A team of scientists looked for inspiration in nature to create drones that are 10 times more efficient at takeoff.
So far, most drones we’ve seen follow the same design principles as traditional aircraft like planes and helicopters. They have wings with landing gears or rotors with sledges. Some get launched from catapults. The lightest ones from the palm of your hand. A team of engineers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has discarded these design principles to solve one of the biggest challenges for aerial vehicles: how to take off and land safely without needing runways or additional equipment. Their answer is to equip drones with robotic limbs that mimic bird legs. The result, as detailed in a study published in Nature, is both comically cute and remarkably efficient—potentially revolutionizing drone design in the future.
RAVEN—short for ‘Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments’—is a drone outfitted with bird-inspired robotic legs. These legs allow the drone to perform takeoffs up to 10 times more efficiently than methods like catapults or runway acceleration. Like bird legs, they enable operation on uneven or obstacle-filled terrain.
