Seagulls and Systems Design Innovation

So just what is the connection between seagulls and systems design innovation? The answer: Hannover Fair. Tohelp you make sense of this, let me start with innovation and finish with the seagull.

I've been coming to Hannover Fair - probably the world's largestindustrial technology show of its kind - nearly every year since 2004; andwhile there is always a bounty of new developments and interesting products ondisplay, most of the time the advances on exhibit are small incrementalimprovements. Such is often the case with advancing technology.

But all the advice from industry experts as we headed into themost recent recession - that technology companies should use the slowdown inbusiness to invest time and money in research - seems to have been taken toheart by a number of companies. And a good bit of it was in evidence at thisyear's Hannover Fair.

Not to take anything away from the advances exhibited by othercompanies but, in my estimation, the symbol of this year's innovationbreakthroughs at Hannover Fair was the Festo seagull.

Here's the deal: Festo has developed what it calls the SmartBird- an extremely agile, robotic bird. The SmartBird can start, fly, and land onits own. Furthermore, by copying the flight motion of the herring gull (uponwhich it was modeled), the wings beat up and down and twist at specific anglesin much the same way bird wings do.

The keys to the realistic wing movement are: a lever mechanismthat, as the wings beat up and down, causes a degree of deflection to increasefrom the SmartBird's torso to the wing tip; and the wing is able to twist sothat the leading edge is directed upward during the upward stroke, therebymaking the torsion created active, rather than passive, and lifting theSmartBird into the air. Active torsion is achieved by a servo motor at the endof the outer wing, which twists the wing via the outer rib of the wing.

The wing's position andtorsion are monitored by a two-way radio using the ZigBee protocol. Communicationto and from the bird includes information on battery charge, power consumptionand input from the pilot.

Inside the bird's torso are the battery, engine and transmission,crank mechanism, and the control and regulation electronics. Three Hall sensorson the motor register the wing's positions. Two electric motors and cables areused to synchronize movement of the head and torso sections. Because the torsobends aerodynamically, with simultaneous weight displacement, the SmartBird isboth agile and maneuverable.

While this is only a broad overview of what goes into theSmartBird technology, one has to wonder: What did Festo get out of all thisresearch beyond being able to wow a technology-loving crowd? According to thecompany, the benefits of what it learned from developing the SmartBird are:transferrable knowledge about hybrid drive technology (pneumatic and electric);and greater efficiencies in resource and energy consumption through the minimaluse of materials and lightweight construction.

Click here to see theFesto SmartBird in action.