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で観ることもできます。【要約】
鳥のように、羽ばたいて空を飛ぶロボット”SmartBird”
カモメの動きをお手本にしてフェスト社が作成しました
体長：１.6メートル
翼長：２メートル
重量：450グラム
素材：カーボンファイバー
動力：モーター
エネルギー消費量：25ワット（飛び立つとき）
16～18ワット（飛行中）
こんなオモチャ、昔からあったような気がする…
何がどう新しいかというと、たぶん、”Smart”の名が表わすように、超軽量で、空気力学的、エネルギー効率的に非常に優れていると言いたいのでしょう
単にバタバタと羽ばたいて短時間だけ飛ぶオモチャとは違うぞ、と
ラジコンのように操縦している様子が映っていますが、頭部と尾部が傾くようになっていて、身体全体で方向を変えるのも本物の鳥みたい
ドイツに本拠地を置くフェスト社は、空気圧機器のトップメーカーとのことですから、空気力学については得意分野ということなのでしょう
慶応義塾大学SFC の山中俊治教授によると、フェスト社は2006年頃から「生体工学学習ネットワーク」というプロジェクトをやっていて、生き物の動きからヒントを得たロボットの開発をしているとのことです
→ Festo Bionic Learning Project
→ 山中俊治「デザインの骨格」
直ぐに何かの役に立つということではないのでしょうが、生物界から学んだデザインと、エネルギー効率を突き詰めていく姿勢が評価されています
フェスト社 スマートバード
フェスト社 空飛ぶペンギン（ヘリウムガス入り）
【語彙】
herring gull ：セグロカモメ
swoop ：急降下
pneumatics ：空気圧工学、空気圧技術
propulsion ：推進力
torsion ：ねじれ
【transcripts】
It is a dream of mankind to fly like a bird. Birds are very agile. They fly, not with rotating components, so they fly only by flapping their wings. So we looked at the birds, and we tried to make a model that is powerful, ultralight, and it must have excellent aerodynamic qualities that would fly by its own and only by flapping its wings.
So what would be better [than] to use the Herring Gull, in its freedom, circling and swooping over the sea, and [to] use this as a role model? So we bring a team together. There are generalists and also specialists in the field of aerodynamics in the field of building gliders. And the task was to build an ultralight indoor-flying model that is able to fly over your heads. So be careful later on. And this was one issue: to build it that lightweight that no one would be hurt if it fell down.
So why do we do all this? We are a company in the field of automation, and we'd like to do very lightweight structures because that's energy efficient, and we'd like to learn more about pneumatics and air flow phenomena.
So I now would like you to [put] your seat belts on and put your hats [on]. So maybe we'll try it once -- to fly a SmartBird. Thank you.
So we can now look at the SmartBird. So here is one without a skin. We have a wingspan of about two meters. The length is one meter and six, and the weight, it is only 450 grams. And it is all out of carbon fiber. In the middle we have a motor, and we also have a gear in it, and we use the gear to transfer the circulation of the motor. So within the motor, we have three Hall sensors, so we know exactly where the wing is. And if we now beat up and down ... we have the possibility to fly like a bird. So if you go down, you have the large area of propulsion, and if you go up, the wings are not that large, and it is easier to get up.
So, the next thing we did, or the challenges we did, was to coordinate this movement. We have to turn it, go up and go down. We have a split wing. With a split wing we get the lift at the upper wing, and we get the propulsion at the lower wing. Also, we see how we measure the aerodynamic efficiency. We had knowledge about the electromechanical efficiency and then we can calculate the aerodynamic efficiency. So therefore, it rises up from passive torsion to active torsion, from 30 percent up to 80 percent.
Next thing we have to do, we have to control and regulate the whole structure. Only if you control and regulate it, you will get that aerodynamic efficiency. So the overall consumption of energy is about 25 watts at takeoff and 16 to 18 watts in flight. Thank you.
Bruno Giussani: Markus, I think that we should fly it once more.
Markus Fischer: Yeah, sure.