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Shape Changing Plane In Development
Eh-Wire writes "The University of Florida has a short article on the "morphing wing" drone they are developing for a small aircraft that can swoop through parking garages, dive into alleys and land on balconies. Close-up video of seagulls in flight was the inspiration for the design of the drone. A still image of the drone shows an aircraft that looks surprisingly gull-like. A video shows the "wing morphing" in action on a static mounted drone. There is also a link to quite a few more videos in the article but it's not real obvious. Some guys get all the phun jobs!"
So how long until they make one that can change into a giant robot?
MAW (Mission Adaptive Wing) designs have been tested since the sixties at least (probably earlier.) Still cool though.
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It's a plane!
What the heck is that thing?
The opinion above is fiction. Any similarity to real opinions, including facts and logic, is purely coincidental.
inventor's design than it does the Wright Brothers designs.
But probably because he based his design on actual seagulls and terns as well.
I for one, welcome our new privacy-impaired overlords.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Wonder plane powers activate! Form of .... a slightly different plane!
... why not just use seagulls with lasers on their heads?
Well, there goes the bird population in countries with paranoid leadership.
Reminds me of the VTOL aircraft in the RTS Total Annihilation. These could even "tuck in" their wings as they landed, and as they tookoff, they would hover upwards while opening their wings.
:)
Seemed like a pretty cool-looking idea anyway
Someone's been reading too much Frank Herbert.
Assuming there is such a thing as too much Frank Herbert.
This might be an interesting thing to avoid expensive helicoptor chases on freeways or on foot persuit in city areas.
I don't get it.
So, when flying over crowds of people, does this new plane drop its cargo every so often?
> It's a plane!
>
> What the heck is that thing?
Holy fuck, it's an elephant! Either get a big umbrella, lay off the booze, or run for your lives!
What's the big deal? I see footage of planes changing shape on those "historic aviation" shows on the Discovery Channel all the time.
The planes tend to change shape in a spectacular fashion when something goes wrong and the ground intersects the plane's flight path.
Oh, great, get a few of these and we have a whole robotic Flock of Seagulls.
Talk about modern warfare, it's a whole new wave of drones.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Here's the video
Coralized, so hopefully people will be able to view it.
I'm not sure if the file goes over Coral's size limit.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Here.
A plane that flaps its wings. Hunh.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The Air Force and NASA have so far provided about $3 million for the UF research, a substantial portion of which is aimed at addressing that issue by making the planes easier to fly.
I wonder why they would need to spend that much money on this "new" idea".
The bird-like prototypes are strikingly maneuverable, capable, for example, of completing three, 360-degree rolls in one second. (An F-16 fighter jet can manage at least one roll per second, but three rolls would produce excessive gravity force, killing the pilot). Flying in videotaped demonstrations, they are so agile they appear out of control at times, and indeed the planes require considerable talent by the remote control pilot.
Oh, oh oh, I see.
Time is comparison of movement to other movement.
So how long until they make one that can change into a giant robot?
It's not making it into a giant robot that's the problem, you simply connect the shape changing plane to the mobile gun platform torso to do that.
It's making it big enough to carry the teenage pilots inside the giant robots that's taking all the time.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Jonathan Livingston Drone just doesn't have the right mix of romance, awe, dread, and reverence if you ask me.
It's surprising that we don't copy nature more often. I mean, animals in existence today have had millions of years or more to adapt, producing incredibly elegant solutions to problems. Of course, reverse engineering these adaptations is difficult, because there's no manual, and no real designer to interrogate.
Looking at the differences between a bird and an airplane one can see obvious benefits of each. What conventional aeronautics have not been able to acomplish is the agility and dexterity with wich birds can manuvere in flight. Birds also have an incredible ability to fly at slow speeds and even recover from dangerous situations. All of these qualities are what we NEED in our future aeronautical designs.
As a Private Pilot I was getting excited by the prospect of the Mohler Flying Car, or even one of those (relatively) cheap DIY helicopters. But there was always something in the back of my mind that said that aircraft NEED to be more like birds.
Admittedly, the technology ISN'T as impressive as one would imagine. BUT, I applaud any attempt at changing the way things are done. In fact, I read an article yesterday that claimed that Japan is doing experiementation with a supersonic (Concorde-like) aircraft! Lets see what the future holds: flying cars, supersonic flight for everyone, personal helicopters, more agile designs, deployable parachutes, better computer assisted flight (from GPS, ALS, to auto performance enhancements).....
Its about time someone in the field of aeronautics changed things....things have remained the same for WAY TOO LONG.
WHY IS IT THAT A 1940's ERA war plane can KICK my Cessna's Butt????????? THIS DOES NOT SEEM LIKE PROGRESS.
oh great - so now we'll have robot gulls fighting over french fries in the McDonalds dumpsters. Of course as robots they'll be able to rip the sides right off the dumpsters...
My favorite variable geometry aerodynamic structure is R. T. Jones' oblique all wing (PDF warning). Its basically just a highly eccentric elipse that flies. At 0 its angle of attack is 0. At Mach 1.6 its angle of attack is 60 degrees. As an SST topping out at Mach 1.6 it can achieve per-passenger fuel economy similar to a subsonic jumbo jet.
Seastead this.
This thing has hinges on its wings! What a gyp! Screw that, that isn't morphing. I want a plane where the wings are made of a single peice of some kind of high-tech polymer that changes shape when electricity is applied to it.
Technoli
not lack of access to a designer. Where do you find a material with the compressive strength of bone and low density? How do you replace the tensional strength and flexiblity of muscle?
If I had any of that $h17 I could build some HELLACIOUS ROBOTS and conquer...ummm, spread democracy throughout the world.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
It looks like they also designed a web server that can "morph" into a molten slag heap...
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
Just throw some alka seltzer on the ground.
If they're particularly adventurous, the designers will do ti by making the wing sweep angle changeable, like in the F-111, F-14 and B-1. Hmmm, two dogs out of three....
It hasnt been done the way this video depicts in real planes as there's a lot of costs:
- Making the wing hinged or flexible means you need a whole heapin helping of actuators to keep it in position. Actuators are made of steel-- very heavy. if it's a fighter plane, the actuators have to be able to hold the wing in position under multiple-G loads. But that requires heavier actuators, which increase the loads...
- Actuators are usually hydraulically powered. Not good in a military airplane which often loses hydraulics due to flak and bullets.
- Hinged or flexible wings usually can't be hollowed out to hold fuel, landing gear, or munitons. Which makes the rest of the plane bigger in proportion to hold those items.
So you end up with a plane that's big, heavy, unreliable all the time, versus having the flexible wing, which only helps in some flight regimes, some of the time. Generally the good doesnt outweigh the bad.Heck, I haven't even seen any living thing with an rotary parts.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
As old as powered flight. The Wright Brothers patented a wing warping system that was used on the Wright Flier, which was of course, the first powered heavier than air craft to successfuly fly.
Very true, and Slashdot readers might be interested to know that wing warping was the subject of a huge patent battle between the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss. See here and here. The consensus is that the patent fight significantly inhibited US aircraft development at the time.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Seriously, it really is amazing to go the beach and see a small sparrow and realize that the tiny bird flies better, is more maneuverable, more energy efficient, has better sensors, better object avoidance and has better AI than the best blue-sky, black budget skunk works project out of Area 51.
It is humbling to think how far we far to go to even come close to what evolution has randomly created.
wow, that was the coolest video ever. Up to this point, I've only seen virtuoso pilots at air shows make those kinds of manuevers with their airplanes. I think this design, new or not, gives these mini planes a LOT of flexibility and could enable such applications as:
- spying on your next door neighbor while she's getting undressed
- spying on your neighbor across the street while she is getting undressed
- spying on your wife while she is getting undressed but not letting you watch because you got caught doing the above two things
- spying on yourself while you are getting undressed by programming the plane to do so WITHOUT your knowledge and then getting really mad at it.
no but seriously, what's up with all the jokes? This is an awesome little plane concept, great job you guys.
Im sorry , but just because the Smithsonian was PAID to never reveal that the Write Brothers were not the first to fly in a powered plane, it simply is NOT TRUE: See the following link: http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.htm l
* Carthago Delenda Est *
(Note: by nearly-certified, I mean that I am about 10 flight hours and a flight test away from being a certified private pilot)
That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the video. However, I am not seeing it as a funny. Very robust wings of that nature could certainly be used in the same manner as the 'Thopter.
They should make one where you have this regular-looking set of wings, and when you go into attack mode, these wings, or "foils," open up and take on the appearance of a large "X" when seen from the front or back.
And I want to mount four of our new laser cannon on it. It should also be able to launch some photon torpedoes. And have a maintenance droid along for the ride.
Is this the natural evolution of the airplane, or is it a case of intelligent design?
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
Thanks for the interesting thread, and of course, thanks for nearly taking down our server. I checked the router logs this afternoon with Prof. Lind and found that we had been slashdotted - DENIED.
Thankfully, we're still running and serving, most likely a result of the mirrors people have kindly setup.
Interesting comments in the thread, I particularly liked the one about our server morphing into a molten slag heap.
I've been studying the dynamics of morphing aircraft throughout my master's and PhD work. Granted we're not dealing with a solution to the morphing problem here. We've simply identified some interesting dynamic properties associated with gull-wing and other morphing types.
As for the use of hinges, we make no excuses for using 'antiquated' technology in place of piezoelectric actuators or other embedded actuators. The piezos require far more voltage than we can provide on the airplanes. The hinges work - every time. Besides, think of the skeletal structure of birds... don't they also use shoulder and elbow joints?