China has unveiled a homing pigeon – “Bird Shaped” drone

With the change in operational forms, unmanned aerial vehicles （uav）have become widely available on the battlefield, especially the light uav, which are mainly used to support intelligence and reconnaissance in frontline areas.  Although this kind of uav is relatively light, it is also because of the limitation of its size, its flight height cannot be too high.  Its power aspect is not sufficient neither, so once discovered, it can be easily knocked off by enemy.  Countries are starting to think about developing drones that are as stealthy as possible, allowing them to spy on enemies at close range without being spotted that easily.

In addition, most of the mainstream uav nowadays are rotary-wing and fixed-wing uav.  Both are driven by propellers making a lot of noise in flight.  When they get close to target, it is easy to be spotted.   To make drones “invisible” with minimum noise, many professionals begin to think of using the principle of bionics to develop drones, making them bird like.  By doing so, not only will it be uneasy to be spotted, the bird like drone will generate much less noise compared to propelled ones.

At present, there are four representative bionic flapping uav developed in the world: “fruit fly” of USA, “intelligent bird” of Germany, “golden eagle” and “carrier pigeon” of China.   Below is a look at the final bionic drone, “carrier pigeon”.

The “carrier pigeon”, designed by the research and development team at Northwest Polytechnical University, first appeared at a drone competition in Beijing in 2011, where it won 12 patents and the first prize in the competition’s creative group.  It is reported that the R&D team is led by Professor Song Bifeng, whom is in charge of the national key discipline “aircraft design” and has rich experience in the field of aircraft design.  During the development of the “carrier pigeon”, the team led by Song had made thousands of test flights to ensure its performance before the actual deployment.

The “carrier pigeon” has received a lot of attention since its debut and has now been widely used in various areas, such as patrol, rescue and urban planning.

It is understood that the “carrier pigeon” uav is comparatively light, with weight of approximately 200 g, wingspan about 50 cm.  Its maximum speed can reach 40 kilometers/hour, longest flight duration about 30 min.  The uav is equipped with HD camera and GPS antenna, and it is also equipped with a flight control system and satellite communication chain.

Compared to the common rotary or fixed wing drones, the “carrier pigeon” is designed to mimic the flapping of a bird’s wings.  It relies on a pair of motor-driven joysticks to create lift and thrust, allowing the drone to fly like a bird.

Further, one of the outstanding features of this uav is its shape design.  It is highly bionic and can imitate 90% of the movements of a pigeon.  If you don’t look closely, you can’t tell the difference between it and a pigeon.  This uav uses advanced materials allowing better radar stealth and less noise when flying.  In specific experiments, it often attracted real carrier pigeon to fly with it, showing very good stealth ability.

Source: Valley Fire Flat