125 Stanford Stories

NO. 40
Impact

Mastering maneuverability

bird in flight best one
The new tunnel's wind speed is set very low for bird tests, but the turbulence can be made complex for studying how birds adapt.
Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service
Lentink and bird
David Lentink, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, rewards a bird's flight with a treat.
Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service
guy and drone
Today's drones often fail in complex wind systems. A researcher studies a quadcopter drone's performance in Stanford's wind tunnel in quest of more stable models.
Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service
quinn and bird
Birds are “masters of maneuverability in ways we are only beginning to understand,” says Stanford postdoctoral fellow Dan Quinn.
Kurt Hickman/Stanford News Service

Secrets of bird flight as viewed in Stanford’s new wind tunnel could yield better aerial robots

For centuries, people in quest of human flight have sought to copy the aerodynamics and anatomy of birds.

Now, a new wind tunnel for birds at Stanford lets researchers study avian flight with unprecedented precision to help solve engineering problems of the 21st century. By replicating the shifts in wind and turbulence that birds must navigate, Stanford’s wind tunnel offers data that can be used to design safer and more reliable robotic aircraft.

Such aircraft often fail in windy conditions, including the wind created by the “urban canyons” of modern skyscrapers, said David Lentink, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford and member of Stanford Bio-X.

“But you look up, and you’ll see a pigeon swoop by casually. It has no problem stabilizing itself, flying around corners, dodging cables and landing on a perch,” Lentink told the Stanford News Service.

“We need to study birds up close so we can figure out what their secret is to flying so stably under such difficult conditions, and apply that to aerial robotic design,” Lentink said.

The smoothness of the Stanford tunnel’s windflow – with less than half the turbulence of any bird tunnel in the world – allowed researchers to build in a “turbulence generating system” whose results can be finely tuned and precisely measured, simulating the complex air flows of urban environments.

Lovebirds and parrotlets, kept in a lab that meets and exceeds all animal research standards enabled by the very best technology Stanford offers, fly for the positive reinforcement of treats.

They are “masters of maneuverability in ways we are only beginning to understand,” said Stanford postdoctoral research fellow Dan Quinn.

Using data gleaned from the birds’ flight, Lentink envisions using the tunnel as a test-bed for new aerial robot designs. As well as establishing better maneuverability controls for common quadcopter designs, he’s interested in building bird-like, winged robots that quickly change their wing shape to maintain stability in unpredictable air flows.