After devising systems inspired by penguins, herring gulls and elephant trunk, engineers at Festo devised a new system suitable for their Bionic Learning Network project. Inspired by dragonflies, they developed BionicOpter – an ultra-light system packed with everything needed to mimic the way dragonflies maneuver in all directions, glide without having to beat their wings… »

Most flying robots aren’t built to recover from shocks after a collision, but a group of researchers from EPFL decided to construct a robot which is suitable for navigation in cluttered indoor environment. Named AirBurr, the flying robot acts like some flying insects and takes advantage of collisions in order to find its way around… »