Tiny Australian falcons may help aircraft withstand worsening turbulence

The nankeen kestrel (Falco cenchroides) pulls off aerial maneuvers that put many advanced aircraft to shame. These diminutive falcons rank as some of the most stable fliers in the world, and are evolved to handle Australia’s extremely gusty, often violent winds. These birds can finely adjust movements in real-time, even hovering amid adverse conditions, something that’s difficult to mimic in rigid plane designs.

While already frustrating enough for aeronautic engineers, the issue is projected to worsen as climate change makes atmospheric turbulence worse. This will almost certainly grow into an even bigger headache for a society increasingly reliant on small unpiloted aerial vehicles (sUAVs) for mapping, agricultural assessment, rescue efforts, and even rapid package deliveries.

Current sUAVs typically only employ a couple wind mitigation solutions in their designs to balance cost, weight, and maneuverability. However, far more is needed to help keep them flying in dangerous conditions. Knowing this, an international research team recently began constructing kestrel-inspired robots that they then subjected to harsh conditions inside powerful wind tunnel facilities. Their results, recently published across two studies in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, suggest new strategies for designing more efficient, reliable, and safe sUAVs.

Basically, it’s time to figure out how to cram as many kestrel techniques into flying robots as possible.

“Birds don’t rely on a single response to wind gusts,” Matt Penn, a Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) engineer and study co-author, explained in a statement. “They constantly adjust their wings and tails to stay balanced, while the natural flexibility of their feathers and joints helps absorb sudden changes in airflow.”

Wind tunnel tests primarily focused on determining how attributes like wing extension and tail spread affected force production and stability. Among their discoveries, Penn’s team confirmed that coupling a kestrel’s wing and tail extensions boosted lift performance while simultaneously reducing unwanted modulations.

“By creating a robot replica, we were able to measure how specific movements were contributing to steadiness in flight,” explained RMIT aerospace engineer and study co-author Mario Martinez Groves-Raines. “Many of these techniques have the potential to improve maneuverability of small aircraft, which encounter similar challenges to kestrels.”

Moving forward, the researchers hope to move beyond sheer physicality by studying the kestrel’s ability to sense and interpret their environment. Advancements in this field could further improve onboard sUAV navigation technology in addition to the structural adaptations.

“This research shows what’s possible when engineers look to nature for solutions,” added RMIT engineer and study co-author Abdulghani Mohamed.

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