It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s a robo-puffin?
Engineers at MIT and EPFL have developed a flapping-wing aquatic-aerial robot inspired by puffins that can seamlessly transition between swimming underwater and flying through the air. The lightweight drone uses flexible wings and a motorized tail to navigate dense water and open air without needing feet for takeoff.
Why it matters
This bio-inspired robotic design opens up new possibilities for dual-medium exploration, allowing drones to safely sample and monitor aquatic environments that are too dangerous for traditional vessels.
MIT engineers’ design for a robot that both swims and flies could lead to a new class of vehicles for ocean exploration.
Given that water is 1,000 times denser than air, moving through those two mediums requires very different mechanics—or so one might assume. Yet birds like gulls and puffins can plunge into the sea, swim underwater, and leap back into the air to fly away. And now engineers at MIT and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a robot that can do likewise.
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