[u]_**Festo - SmartBird - YouTube
Nothing more to say... i like it....
Greetings ChrisS
Is that for real? it's pretty neat. I gather it's RC not autonomous.
Rob
Yes its real, and it could be autonomous....
That company creates robotic animals and such things .... don#t know the word... "biomechanics" ?!?!?...
There are Fishes, Penguines and something... but this bird is impressive....
in Germany's Industrial HannoverFair about 2 Weeks ago,...
that bird was first presented and fly one of the fairs building all fair long and "autonomous" like ...
Seems that there was a preprogrammed Path and maybe one Emergency/Crash people there....
mmh, don't know... but i think its a really cool attempt of engeneering and "engineless" - flight....
Greetings ChrisS
Update: On their Webpage:
http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/11369_11437.htm#id_11437
there is a animation of the birdsconcept....
in the video there is text "Autonomous Takeoff, Flight, Landing" ... <<< so this not needed RC controlled....
A special thing is, that this bird "flyies" like a "real" bird... thats the first Mashine which is able to do this... not only "something" aerodynamics for pushing air to fly, this do this like a real bird... first realy working attempt.
Very cool. Looks real to me. I fear if a smart bird flies away and starts to rep-rap itself 
Cool!
This definitely has a huge amount of awesome to it.
Holy crap, what an accomplishment....
I was in awe already, but now that I read it is autonomous, I'm just without words... friggin' genius!
What would be more awesome are a pair of legs and the tendency to feed on battery chargers. That could take a while to get.
What would be more awesome are a pair of legs and the tendency to feed on battery chargers power lines. ]
ChrisS:
A special thing is, that this bird "flyies" like a "real" bird... thats the first Mashine which is able to do this... not only "something" aerodynamics for pushing air to fly, this do this like a real bird... first realy working attempt.
Hardly. Onithoptor designs have been pursued for as long as there have been the fancy to fly. Most of the early ones were very unsuccessful, but there were several model versions designed and built prior to manned flight that worked fairly well. What has always been an issue is the power to weight to thrust ratio needed to get such a beast to fly.
In the 1960s there were several modellers building scaled R/C ornithopters, and in the 1980s, Paul MacCready (Paul MacCready - Wikipedia) built a flying pterosaur. You can easily find wind-up rubber-band flying "birds". Today, there has been a resurgence in building smaller radio-controlled (and free flight) ornithopters.
Then, of course, there's this fairly recent project:
So as a "new" attempt? No - perhaps this one has some interesting controls, perhaps some autonomy; I noticed the tail surfaces, and I wasn't sure, but it seemed like the head maybe rotated a bit (perhaps for directional control?). But it is hardly the first ornithopter otherwise...
Landing on power lines and leeching power? Awesome idea!
@crOsh:
You are right... my english is not well enough to get out the point....
This is the first efficient ADAPTION of the Bird "Silbermöwe".
Its not the "like a bird"... with two wings and up and down...> it's the real flightbehaviour of this bird.....
you will notice that the wings are much flexible.... not an aerodynamic wall powerd by turbo turbines...
the new part is, that it is somelike a working copy of nature... "bionics"...
till now in fact of material and weight-issues this wasn't possible.... (they say)....
the fact "this is no Boing323 with two wings which goes up and down"...
this bird uses the "real" flight conditions and flightbehavior like this bird because of special materials... special weight, special engeneering...
Ok, who was the first on the moon or mars... this is not relevant i think....
comparing with ornithopter... ahm, airplanes are not robotic birds.... i think comparing is completly wrong....
such things are much older... Otto Lillienthal is one of the famous for first airplanes....
this is completly different... a bionic autonomous bird with completly bird alike flight behaviour....
mmh, i don't showed this because its the first or best....
i like this simply... a cool engeneering thing... autonomous, robotic, natural....
i think nature ist the perfect mashine... this gets a bit close to that...
yes, you are right, Head Pan/Tilt is for navigaion to direct the airflow to wings and back"wing"... directional control... right....
You see this on their page in concept video....
Greetings ChrisS
Awesome! That's just beautiful! Thanks for posting.
I got to see one of their sales trailers, they were making a multi million dollar deal with a local company and it wasn't scheduled until 1 PM, so they parked it in our school parking lot and let us look around
Friggin awesome stuff