This Robot Can Flap Its Wings and Swim
SMRTR summary
Puffins do something remarkable: they fly through the air at high speed, then dive and swim underwater at nearly 10 feet per second. Now, engineers at MIT and Switzerland's Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne have taken a cue from those birds to build a robot that can do the same.
Their "flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle," published in the journal Science, weighs less than half a pound and is fully waterproof. Its flexible wings adjust their flapping frequency to handle both air and water, the way diving birds fold their wings underwater to manage the density difference.
In tests on Lake Geneva, the robot successfully launched itself back into the air from the water, as long as it exited at an angle above 70 degrees. No robot had previously managed that transition.
"One of the major challenges in ocean science is collecting data both frequently and across many locations, which is something this robot could do in the future," said researcher Raphael Zufferey.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Nautilus.
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