Engineering news
Aimed at informing better aircraft design, the bird flight research centre at the University of California, Davis, was announced yesterday (1 February) with an almost $3m grant from the US Department of Defence.
The new centre will use motion capture and photogrammetry – which uses photography to determine the distance between objects – to image birds in flight and create 3D models of the wing shapes, to inform the design and capabilities of the next generation of uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS.
Christina Harvey, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, and Michelle Hawkins, a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine and director of the California Raptor Centre, anticipate that by gleaning information about how different types of birds manoeuvre around complex environments, they can inform the development of next-generation drones and other UAS to deliver packages, detect and fight wildfires, and more.
The centre will include an indoor hall in which the birds can fly and manoeuvre. Infrared and high-speed, high-resolution cameras will be installed along the hall.
The birds, including turkey vultures, a peregrine falcon, a kestrel, a barn owl, kites and a red-tailed hawk named Jack, will be trained to fly down the facility’s hallway and land on a perch.
“While other groups, particularly in the UK, have used motion capture and photogrammetry separately to perform bio-informed flight research on birds, this centre will be the first to pair the two, to quantify how birds react and move in complex environments,” the announcement said.
The researchers will create 3D models of complex wing shapes and investigate “fundamental research questions”, such as how birds control their dynamic systems in flight and what attributes are necessary to achieve specific manoeuvres. Incorporating these attributes into aircraft design could “unlock a world of potential for uncrewed aerial systems, from package delivery in remote and urban areas to wildfire surveillance,” the announcement said.
Harvey added: “Think of firefighting. We don’t have an aircraft that can switch between a surveillance drone like a glider and an aircraft that can weave between trees like multi-rotors. Information we glean from this research may move us closer in that direction. This research has the potential to really impact the world.”
The facility is currently in the planning stages, with the goal to break ground this autumn.
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