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The US military’s UAV fleet will soon be getting a small addition — DARPA’s hummingbird-shaped covert surveillance drone.
Dubbed the Nano Hummingbird, this Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) is built by AeroVironment. It’s designed for urban surveillance missions and has just passed DARPA’s Phase II technical milestones.
It mimics more than just a hummingbird’s looks, mind you. By copying the bird’s aerodynamics and wing movements, the NAV is able to hover for eight minutes while easily moving in and out of buildings. The tiny, 10-gram flier is also able to operate in windy conditions — withstanding up to 5MPH gusts. The drone is controlled via a video stream from its deployment aircraft.
So the next time you see a hummingbird with four prongs instead of tail feathers, be sure to smile for the camera. [UnCrate via Ubergizmo]
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It’ll be easy to differentiate these drones from the actual birds here in the UK, seeming as we don’t have any hummingbirds over here.
I think you over estimate the average Brits ability to classify the various species of indigenous bird species.
I asked a collegue if they could name the bird in the tree near the office window… “Er, a Dickie Bird? I have no idea.” Was the answer. (It was a Starling)
I agree with both of you but (I’m fairly confident that) all British birds have eyes, a feathery coating and two kind of fleshy legs – and they generally don’t fall out of the sky after 8 minutes
Yeah… except for the squinty eyed, boney legged, scaley skinned birdS, often seen in most town centres around chucking out time. And people complain about the Pigeons?