There is a lot of technology that has been inspired by nature, or even made more advance because of nature, and scientists at Stanford are indeed taking advantage of that and have recently constructed a one-of-a-kind wind tunnel that they believe will lead to the creation of better drones.
These wind tunnels have been designed to simulate wind turbulence and scientists will then release birds in these tunnels to get a better idea of how they deal with said turbulence. The tunnel can generate turbulence of varying speeds and patterns, and are also equipped with motion sensors and high-speed cameras meant to capture and record even single flap of the birds’ wings as they fly inside the tunnel.
According to David Lentink, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the university, “But you look up, and you’ll see a pigeon swoop by casually. It has no problem stabilizing itself, flying around corners, dodging cables and landing on a perch. It’s just something we haven’t accomplished in robotics yet. We need to study birds up close so we can figure out what their secret is to flying so stably under such difficult conditions, and apply that to aerial robotic design.”
Like we said, one of the goals of the tunnel and the study is in hopes that what the scientists have learnt from nature can then be applied to robotics such as drones, or maybe even to help in the design of planes to reduce the bumpiness felt during turbulence.