Source: Shaanxi Metropolitan Express
Recently, the reporter learned from Northwestern Polytechnical University that the endurance time of the "carrier pigeon" bionic aerial vehicle developed by the university's scientific research team exceeded 3 hours, breaking the Guinness World Record for the flight time of a single charge of a flapping wing drone. The team's "Cloud Owl" bionic aircraft once set a endurance record of 2 hours, 34 minutes and 38 seconds.
The "carrier pigeon" was developed by the bionic aerial vehicle research team of Northwestern Polytechnical University, with a wingspan of 70 cm and a take-off weight of 260 grams. At 8:54:12 a.m. on September 22, under the witness of the staff of the national certification body, the "carrier pigeon" flapped its wings and took off lightly at the Chang'an Campus of Northwestern Polytechnical University, sometimes flapping its wings in the air, sometimes circling, and sometimes gliding with the wind. At 11:59:42, the "carrier pigeon" glided and landed smoothly, maintaining a endurance of 3 hours, 5 minutes and 30 seconds. It is understood that compared to the "Cloud Owl", which set the Guinness World Record on November 15, 2022, the "carrier pigeon" has a smaller fuselage, with a wingspan of less than half that of the "Cloud Owl" and a weight of about a quarter of the "Cloud Owl".
"Pigeons" began to take off
The "Cloud Owl" bionic aerial vehicle that set the Guinness World Record for the flight time of a flapping wing drone on a single charge.
The "carrier pigeon" breaking the world record is the result of long-term deep cultivation in the field by the bionic aircraft research team of Northwestern Polytechnical University. For more than 20 years, the team started from the research on the internal mechanism of bird wing structure, flapping mode and flight performance, studied in detail the influence mechanism of bird wing structure and movement form on flight performance, broke through the key technologies such as flapping wing, drive mechanism and flight control system design in the design of bionic aircraft, successively developed bionic aircraft with different characteristics such as "Little Falcon", "Cloud Owl" and "Pigeon", and completed more than 1,500 flight missions in more than 10 regions across the country, reaching the international leading level in many aspects.
Birds flew in flight
"Bionic flapping wing aircraft imitates birds and other creatures flapping their wings to fly, because of its light weight, small size, weak noise and other characteristics, with bionics, concealment and portability, generally for hand throwing takeoff, gliding landing, takeoff and landing is not limited by the site, can be applied to local complex environmental emergency rescue information acquisition, field biological scientific expeditions and other fields." Professor Song Bifeng, chief scientist of the team, said, "The significant improvement in endurance time not only verifies the performance of the aircraft, but also further expands the application scenarios of miniaturized bionic aircraft, which will help this type of aircraft to move towards practical application as soon as possible." ”
【Source: Shaanxi Urban Express, Shaanxi Daily, Northwestern Polytechnical University】