Santos Batidrones!: Swiss engineers propose drones with “bat wings” to improve their efficiency

Engineers of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausana (EPFL) have designed a flexible wing system inspired by those of bat dronesamong other practical uses.

Researchers at the School of Engineering of the Higher Center have studied the way in which bats use their membranous wings, spending up to 40% less energy than insects such as moths, to develop new wings for highly deformable drones, made with a Silicone -based polymer, the institution said in a statement.

“The air flows gently on the curved wings, generating more support and making them even more efficient than the rigid wings of the same size,” said the authors of the study, published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

“Not only is it necessary for the wing to be curved, but it must be fairly, since a too flexible wing has a worse performance”, Highlighted the former EPFL doctoral student Alexander Gehrke, the main author of the study.

The results of this can be useful for both biologists and engineers in the unnimorated flying devices, which are increasingly manufactured of smaller size, so they are increasingly affected by small aerodynamic disturbances.

“Standard square drones stop working on a very small scale, so a solution could be to use the same animal flutter movements to build improved versions that can float and transport a more efficient payload,” EPFL said .

Team findings could also be used to improve existing energy technologies, such as wind turbinesor to market others of the future, such as the tidal captors who take advantage of the energy of the ocean currents.