Robotic Animals: The SmartBird

Watch the video above. Be honest, if you hadn’t known that it was a robot, you would of really thought that it was a really bird. The new nature inspired SmartBird can take off, fly, and land on it owns able to flap its wings in realistic and judging the video, even turn its head.


The SmartBird was designed by German industrial control and automation company, Festo, for its Bionic Learning Network which already includes an elephant trunk like mechanical arm and robotic jellyfish (more on these in future posts). The Bionic Learning Network is a cooperation between Festo and several universities throughout the US and Europe whose goal use nature as a model for biomechatronics and automation technology.

The robotic bird is about 6.5 feet from wing to wing so it’s bigger than the Herring Gull that it was modeled after. How it works is that it uses an active torsion system to twist the wings how a real bird instead of like flaps that are in airplanes. In addition, the wings and tail are the only mechanisms creating lift which make it look so realistic. The SmartBird’s wings each consist of a two-part arm wing with an axle bearing on the torso. This combined with a fully integrated lift and propulsion system along with a bending torso for directional control allows for natural movement and propulsion.


As Festo explained on their website, “This bionic technology-bearer, which is inspired by the herring gull, can start, fly and land autonomously – with no additional drive mechanism. Its wings not only beat up and down, but also twist at specific angles. This is made possible by an active articulated torsional drive unit, which in combination with a complex control system attains an unprecedented level of efficiency in flight operation. Festo has thus succeeded for the first time in creating an energy-efficient technical adaptation of this model from nature.”


This obviously a big step for biomechanics as mastering flight has been one of the biggest challenges for humans. I relation to rest of the world’s major innovations, controlled flight was only achieved just a little more than one hundred years ago. However, I personally don’t see much potential use for realistic bird flight. Like almost all technology, this could be easily implemented in the military field as an unmanned aerial vehicle to be used for surveillance. It doesn’t seem possible that this kind of technology can be scaled up or even be used to as small cargo transport as well. Oh well, only time will tell.