Avian-Inspired Engineering!

Shinkansen 500 Series inspired by kingfisher beak — Shinkansen 500 Series — design inspired by the kingfisher’s beak.

Scientists and engineers often take inspiration from nature to design and imagine new robots that can solve complex problems ¹. Similarly, there are many examples of robots created by engineering scientists that are inspired by nature. This field of engineering is called biomimicry or bio-inspired engineering. A branch of field within this is bird-inspired engineering, or avian-inspired engineering. These bird-like robots can mimic some of the ways in which birds move and fly. We have a long way to go, as building these are incredibly hard.

Here is LisEagle, a robot inspired by a hawk. It can change the shape of its wings and tail to adjust to flying conditions, such as when the wind speed changes ².

Here is another bot, PercHug. It copies how birds can hold onto trees while landing. Next to it is an image of a young owl hugging a tree ³.

“Biomimetics.” Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetics. ↩
Jeger, Simon Luis, Valentin Wüest, Charbel Toumieh, and Dario Floreano. “Adaptive Morphing of Wing and Tail for Stable, Resilient, and Energy-Efficient Flight of Avian-Inspired Drones.” npj Robotics 2, no. 1 (2024): 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44182-024-00015-y. ↩
Wüest, Valentin, Simon Jeger, Mir Feroskhan, Enrico Ajanic, Fabio Bergonti, and Dario Floreano. “Agile Perching Maneuvers in Birds and Morphing-Wing Drones.” Nature Communications 15, no. 1 (2024): 8330. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52369-4. ↩