Successfully fabricated jellyfish-style motion equipment

US scientists have just announced that they have successfully built the world's first "jellyfish-style airplane".

With a compact size and weighing only 2.1 grams, this object can fly and move with a jelly-like movement in water. This invention was published in the British Journal of Royal Society Interface on January 14.

Leif Ristroph, one of the two scientists co-chaired the study together with expert Stephen Childress of New York University's Applied Mathematics Laboratory, said they were initially interested in creating a "cone." Robot parasites " can replace helicopters, but the results are quite unusual when the selected animal is a jellyfish.

Engineers have been paying attention to jellyfish for a long time because this animal has simple but effective movements. Over millions of years of evolution, jellyfish only need a simple muscle and a primitive nervous system. The jellyfish's body is like a transparent " dome", which can be rolled up and then closed, pushing water out through small holes and helping it move.

Flying-type model of jellyfish.(Photo: dpa)

In this study, the flying device used 4 petal-propeller blades, each 8cm long, when stacked together to form an inverted cone. A tiny motor, attached to a crank, will make these wings move up and down 20 times in 1 second and push air through the bottom of the "cone".

With the design above, scientists have created a "bird wing" , which can fly at high stability, without the need for regular or costly calibration. It can also redirect flight by allowing one of the four wings to operate more than the other wings.

The fabrication materials are also quite easy to find, including thin leaves made of light carbon fiber to accommodate the engine and frame the propellers. The blades are covered with transparent Mylar film.

Ristoph said, he and his colleague Childress were inspired by scenes from early 20th-century aviation pioneers who tried to create a "bird wing plane" that mimicked the flight pattern insects, but lack of knowledge or materials to do at the time.

New York University is preparing to apply for a patent for this invention. The next step for scientists is to build more batteries and remote controls.

Ristoph hopes the machine can be used for military purposes such as flying reconnaissance, or for civilian purposes such as measuring air pollution. He plans to name the device AeroJelly .