Paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University, aeronautical engineer Rick Lind of the University of Florida, and their students Andy Gedeon and Brian Roberts are looking back in time to create the future. A robotic spy plane with next-generation capabilities that’s based on the Pterodactyl.

Mimicking the physical and biological characteristics of the Early Cretaceous Brazilian pterosaur Tapejara wellnhoferi — skin, blood vessels, muscles, tendons, nerves, cranial plate, skeletal structure, and more — the scientists are working to develop a Pterodrone — an unmanned aerial vehicle that not only flies but also walks and sails just like the original.

[Scientificblogging]

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Military, Research. Be sure to subscribe to the Botropolis.com feed because it is really, really awesome. Have something you want to share? Please let us know.

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