Wear smart glasses for parrots to study flying robots

This research will allow scientists to better understand how animals fly and thereby help engineers improve flying robots.

In the laboratory of the California Institute of Science and Technology (USA), the atmosphere is covered with fog and lasers. The parrots are given smart glasses to protect their eyes and then they are trained to fly through this foggy and light atmosphere.

When the birds flap their wings, they will cause the surrounding mist particles to be disturbed. Scientists will study the motion patterns of these dew particles to better understand how animals fly.

In a recent study, scientists measured and analyzed the path of the dew created by parrots and found that the flight of animals still contains many mysteries. need to be answered. They hope that this study will help contribute and improve modern aerodynamic concepts .

When animals fly, they create invisible imprints in the air. This is similar when a ship moving on the water will leave ripples behind. The analytical model on the computer will be able to help explain changes in air molecules to create enough force to keep a bird suspended in the air or push it forward.

Parrots in the lab were wearing dark smart glasses to protect their eyes.(Image source: foxnew).

In the study, scientists turned to the help of a small parrot Thai Binh Dieu who was named Obi . Obi is trained to fly between two poles 5 meters apart. This space is covered with tiny droplets and illuminated by lasers. The particles are exceptionally small, "only about 1 micron in diameter" , said the study's author, David Lentink, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University. Meanwhile, the average human hair is about 100 microns thick. Obi's eyes were protected from laser light by a smart glass.

When the laser projector turns on and off with lightning speed of up to 1,000 times per second, water droplets reflect the light of the laser. At that time, the high-speed camera would capture 1,000 frames per second to record the changes of the dew when Obi moved.

This test showed a big surprise. The old model predicts that when animals fly, they will create vortexes of air and they will survive for a long time and relatively stable. But when the computer records the movement of the mist created by Obi, the vortexes of air completely disappear after Obi flaps his wings a few times.

Lentink explained that this demonstrates that the currently widely used flight models in aircraft construction as well as flying robots have revealed many incomplete points.

People are still underestimated and superficial about a marvelous activity of nature as flight movement. Even a winged parrot was much more complicated than scientists had previously predicted. Meanwhile, many variants of flying motion will appear in different animals.

This research will allow scientists to better understand how animals fly and thereby help engineers improve flying robots.