Flapping-Wing Robot Achieves Self-Takeoff by Adopting Reconfigurable Mechanisms

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

PaulHoule

87 points

22 comments

science.orgResearchstory

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RoboticsFlapping-Wing RobotsAerial Robotics

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Robotics

Flapping-Wing Robots

Aerial Robotics

Researchers have developed a flapping-wing robot that achieves self-takeoff using reconfigurable mechanisms, sparking interest and discussion among the HN community about its potential and limitations.

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01Story posted
Oct 8, 2025 at 4:30 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Oct 15, 2025 at 8:58 AM EDT
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Oct 16, 2025 at 6:14 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (22 comments)

Showing 22 comments

mhb

3 months ago

1 reply

The essential missing (or maybe I just missed it) video:

https://youtu.be/tD5I6x_bPkw?si=KFTx89LmPjrVu5Ib

Edit - better video:

https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/video/2025/bird-like-robot-with-n...

3 months ago

1 reply

It's a render. A real life takeoff video is still missing..

yorwba

3 months ago

2 replies

Movie S5 from the supplementary material: https://imgur.com/a/LVb2m22

orthecreedence

3 months ago

1 reply

You can see the string attached to it! Do they think we're stupid??

yorwba

3 months ago

The string goes slack when it lifts off, so it's not like it's being pulled up. I think it's there to catch it in the inevitable case of a crash. And maybe they haven't figured out how to land gracefully yet.

3 months ago

Looks super cool. Now I want to build one and stick an FPV camera on it:)

ACCount37

3 months ago

1 reply

Pretty cool. Just two servos per wing, with one shared BLDC motor to provide the power to the strokes. That's comparable to what normal fixed wing drones have. Extreme mechanical complexity though.

I can't see this being practical, but it makes for one hell of a tech demo. Wish there was footage available. It feels really incomplete without a video of this bird taking off, flying and landing.

JKCalhoun

3 months ago

1 reply

I saw recently the Chinese (The Chinese!) are experimenting in this area (and with flying insect machines?) — perhaps for surveillance drones that will look for all practical purposes like an ordinary bird/insect.

ACCount37

3 months ago

The whole "surveillance drone" thing is so overrated. No one gives a shit, really.

People make things like insect drones and bird drones because they're cool. That's it. That's the only practical purpose. Anything else is flimsy justification, sometimes employed to get the funding to do the cool thing.

ge96

3 months ago

4 replies

I used to be obsessed with rc ornithopters but I always thought the main problem was that hulking gear ratio/mechanism and the oscillation making it not really great for flight compared to fixed wing/propeller driven.

This one (servo driven) is really light compared to the usual RC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOw6BUOo78

This guy does great work, it's like his obsession https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrB1pKInIu0

PaulHouleAuthor

3 months ago

1 reply

I had a really stylish robot dragonfly that I got from Big Lots at a huge discount, trouble was it could not fly in any amount of wind and the only place I could fly it was in Barton Hall.

ge96

3 months ago

1 reply

I might know the one you're talking about, did it have a fan as a rudder?

Oh speaking of dragonfly-like ornithopter this one is hardcore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCrS52sM3Zs

Reminds me of that Chicken Run movie ha

PaulHouleAuthor

3 months ago

It was this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlyTech_Dragonfly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7j6KPbn4eE

TYPE_FASTER

3 months ago

Of course there is one available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/live/video/0a7d56413360489dbf25611edf...

Also: https://www.amazon.com/Kooteyybhyy-Ornithopter-Generation-He...

Which may be re-branded version of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6nuMDV6n18

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Hanvon/page/426FE09E-17DC-4FBB...

I found this forum: https://www.rcgroups.com/ornithopters-101/

Which led to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqBoA5CfPs - really neat to see it climb and glide.

asdff

3 months ago

Advanced bird drones must be born secret technology. It makes little sense how so much can be understood about birds and yet there is no perfect bird replica on the market aside from these pared down maker lab tier efforts.

And indeed, lending further credence to the born secret idea is that the CIA has been experimenting on bird drones since at least the 1960s (1), and this was only revealed to the public in 2013. The state of the art must be so far advanced. What a prize for an intelligence agency to be able to create a surveillance system where it does not matter if it is detected on radar, or visualized at all because it looks exactly like indigenous bird populations.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_AQUILINE

JKCalhoun

3 months ago

Yeah, totally subscribed to "that guy". I think he's been experimenting with ducted fans (kind of not ornithopters) and also dragon-fly type of flight with four wings (entomopter?).

jacquesm

3 months ago

1 reply

What an amazing quality article.

ElijahLynn

3 months ago

Truth, so much detail and depth.

monooso

3 months ago

I look forward to Boston Dynamics turning this into something that will haunt my nightmares.

fijiaarone

3 months ago

Robots aren’t real.

ElijahLynn

3 months ago

For the videos: search the page for "Movies S1 to S5" And click download to download a zip file of five videos. The fifth video shows the actual flight. Albeit, there's a string attached to the top, which doesn't appear to be helping it, but I'm not certain.

bigjohnjacob

3 months ago

The birds aren't real people are gonna love this.

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ID: 45520263Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:32:34 PM

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