An innovative new drone design takes a cue from bird anatomy. RAVEN, the Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments, has bird legs and articulated feet, enabling the drone to jump forward into the air to take off. The design is essentially a mechanical bird with a propellor.
Most drones utilize VTOL, vertical take-off and landing, but RAVEN's bird legs allow it to launch with a jump, which requires significantly less energy. Fixed-wing flight is also more efficient than VTOL. Because it hops instead of running, it can even take off without a runway. RAVEN can also walk, hop, or jump, adapting and moving around various terrain types.
While the video shows multiple instances of take-off and flight, all the flights end with the drone plopping into a safety net, so it appears that the engineers haven't entirely worked out the landing process yet.
Previously: Drones still revealing Nazca geoglyphs—hundreds of them
