Flapping Solar Aircraft,The Bird Plane

NASA and Ohio Aerospace Institute build a special plane that mimics a bird.

Due to recent advances in polymers, photovoltaics, and batteries, the development of a revolutionary type of unmanned aircraft may now be feasible.

All these advances has made it possible a solar bird plane, that mimics a bird and extracts energy from the sun and stores it in a battery and uses them to fly with no moving parts. That is what the video demonstrates, how NASA is working with Ohio Aerospace Institute and making this bird plane possible.

This flight vehicle would include thin flexible solar panel with thin flexible battery, and with special parts built inside will enable the bird plane to fly. This flight vehicle would integrate airfoil, propulsion, energy production, energy storage, and control into one seamless design with no conventional mechanical moving parts.

This will allow unmanned flight operations that can be used for exploring and capturing images of remote areas.

The main part for this vehicle is an ionic polymeric metal composite (IPMC), whic is the source for control and propulsion. This innovative material has the unique ability to deform in the presence of an electric field and return to its original shape when the field is removed. This on and off movement will help them fly to far distances. When this IPMC is combined with thin film batteries and thin film photovoltaics provides energy storage and energy storage in one thin structure as shown in the picture and the video.

This flapping of the wings generates the propulsion force it needs to fly. By controlling the flapping and the movement it can fly in any direction and fly at greater heights. This is a basic research model, more studies and tests will be done to test the various factors. Some of the tests have already been done and verified. Where will this bird plane be used? It will be used to fly over Earth, Venus and Mars. This will give more control than regular satellites that orbit around the planets and with sophisticated cameras can provide great detail of the planets and places.

The Wright brothers would be proud to see this plane.

Ref: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/623/#