Micro-UAV Inspired By Maple Seeds
October 26th, 2009
How many times have you watched a Maple seed gently fall through the sky and thought to yourself that it’s like a mini helicopter? And it is. That flight is how the Maple tree gets it’s seeds as far as possible, harnessing the breeze.
Using the spiral flight that the seeds take when they fall off a tree, researchers from the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering have finally managed a micro-unmanned aerial vehicle. It’s inspired by the Maple seed and mimics the useful aspects. It’s the “world’s smallest controllable single-winged rotocraft.”
Creating micro-UAVs that are stable in a small size that can hover, has been a problem because the aircrafts they created in this size often fell prey to the whims of the wind. But now the researchers have solved the steering problem, with a solution that allows the UAV to take off from the ground and hover and also perform controlled flights after its initial fall to the ground post being deployed off an aircraft. The device can also hover during its initial descent, or after being launched by hand.
