Scientists to create flying snakes in robotics
WeirdNews
Scientists to create flying snakes in robotics
(Web Desk) – Robotics is designed to imitate animals and human behaviors, including walking, running, dancing. In a recent news scientists are trying to find ways to create a technology that can help the machine to fly in a gliding motion similar to flying snakes.
Several researchers from the University of Virginia and technology department have explored the mechanism of flying snakes and have studied how they can glide from one tree to another by moving their undulate side by side motion which helps them to go as far as 25 meters from a 15 meter tower.
To understand this mechanism of undulation in flying snakes, they developed a computational model by observing its movements in a video recording. The main thing to note was the cross-sectional shape of the snake’s body which is very similar to an elongated Frisbee or a disc.
The special shape helps it to glide by creating air pressure beneath its body and suction above it, which helps the snake to glide through the air.
“The snake’s horizontal undulation creates a series of major vortex structures, including leading edge vortices, LEV, and trailing edge vortices, TEV,” said Haibo Dong, author at the University of Virginia. He added “The formation and development of the LEV on the dorsal, or back, surface of the snake body plays an important role in producing lift.
The vortices are produced near the head and move at the same time as the body. Scientists have also observed that the LEVs stay for long period of time before the snake sheds it skin. The curves on its skin are formed during the undulation process and can be noted to understand the mechanism of flying.
The researcher’s group considered a number of features including angle of attack, how they form their bodies before undulation and to determine what is important before gliding.
“The general trend we see is that a frequency increases leads to an instability in the vortex structure, causing some vortex tubes to spin. The spinning vortex tubes tend to detach from the surface, leading to a decrease in lift” Dong stated.
