
A robotic dragonfly with a wingspan of 63 cm - ashkav
http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/design-engineering/news/festo-to-fly-bionicopter-at-hannover-design-eng-99101
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scotty79
That's a good PR. Instead of paying TV to say "FESTO makes best manufacturing
automation devices" in a fancy way, they just dedicated some engineers and
some budget to making cool things no-one ever did before.

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digikata
It's always nice to see something like this, but just for some context there's
many people doing similar things:

Two Wings <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn5pPy9BX3w>

Four Wings <http://youtu.be/rJwIhnFxuWQ>

More wings <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyDLs0w48tA>

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sodiumphosphate
Festo is just fascinating. I feel like a child every time they produce a new
video like this.

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lenazegher
I honestly had no idea such things were possible. Aside from the sheer amazing
delight, are there advantages to flapping-wing modes of flight?

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DoubleCluster
It's the future! I think that it would be great for agility, and perhaps to
mimic insects so the army can use them covertly.

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ams6110
Or to replace the bees (see "Bees Dying" currently on the HN front page)
if/when they go extinct

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Lagged2Death
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn,_Invisible_Boy>

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pravda
The second thing I thought about after seeing that video was a story I had
read a long time ago about a telepresence mechanical dragonfly. And then
shazam, I clicked the link!

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SEJeff
So what I find interesting is a swarm of these suckers. Put cameras on them
and send a small swarm of 40-50 into a building. The fun part would be writing
the pathfinding code so that they don't hit eachother.

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scarmig
I wonder how often real life dragonflys hit each other.

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pcarmichael
While I am amazed at the engineering and seriously impressed at what they
accomplished, I can't help but watch the video and think that that is one
portly-looking dragonfly.

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monsterix
Yep!

Though for a first generation it looks quite good. It is _quite_ functional
indeed, and a great achievement for the engineers.

But yes, the tail and head seem to pick up a lot vibration of swinging wings.
Can't wait for the next iteration!

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neya
That's so cool! At 63cm, I wouldn't exactly call it a dragon fly though...A
flying squirrel maybe? :D

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splotcheleven
Really old dragonfly: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura>

Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period
approximately 300 million years ago, which resembled and are related to the
present-day dragonflies. With wingspans of up to 65 cm (25.6 in), M. monyi is
one of the largest known flying insect species; the Permian Meganeuropsis
permiana is another. Meganeura were predatory, and fed on other insects, and
even small amphibians.

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samstave
Whats really interesting is that the amount of oxygen in the air impacts the
size of insects.

There was a study where by increasing the amount of oxygen in the air, in just
a few generations, insect were gaining as much as 10% in size.

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chrisdl
verge has done a piece on it too now.
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/29/4160620/dragonfly-drone-
fe...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/29/4160620/dragonfly-drone-festo-
roboticopter-hovers-flies-backward-in-video)

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escherba
Looks like the park of the Permian period will be robotic.

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scotto
Does anyone know what servos they run in these?

