back to article US robot ornithopter spy-hummingbird in flight test triumph

Amazing news from the world of tiny robot spy ornithopters today, as developers have announced successful flight trials of the tiny robot spy ornithopter "Hummingbird" prototype – so named perhaps because it is roughly the size of a hummingbird, weighs as much as a hummingbird and looks like a horse ... no, sorry, like a …

COMMENTS

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  1. BorkedAgain
    Thumb Up

    Seems remarkably stable!

    Will it be on the market by Christmas?

    (And when I say "on the market" I mean the market on our high street every Saturday and Tuesday)

  2. Phil Hare 2
    FAIL

    When the Taliban cotton on...

    ...the avian population of Afghanistan is going to drop like a stone.

  3. Eugene Goodrich
    Paris Hilton

    Waiting for the swallow...

    ... because I want to see an ornithopter with a fair load-carrying capacity, e.g. a coconut.

    Paris, because of the foregoing.

    1. Slartybardfast

      Waitng for the swallow

      African or Asian?

      .

      .

    2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      African or European

      You have to know these things when you're a king

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ahahah, first time I hear it... today

      "Paris, because of the foregoing"

      Anyone still finds the "Paris because" jokes funny? In which case I can send my gran'pa over, you'll find him hilarious. It's a win-win situation because we find him unfunny and annoying.

  4. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Pint

    Dear Santa...

    ...please bring me a THOPTERCAM. Cam-O-Thopter?

  5. Darryl

    but...

    I thought DARPA invented the Internet so that the population COULD see things like Paris playing Hide the Sausage

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure that...

    ... they are already selling these down Preston shopping center. Every time I walk through St Georges there's always a girl there walking round her stand with the latest radio controlled helicopter / bird / wasp / butterfly / flying saucer. Only costs about 20 quid too. Now if only I can attach my Iphone to it I can do the neat video in the top left corner trick :)

  7. nagyeger
    Pint

    power-source? flight time?

    Now why do I doubt that the one pictured runs all day on small sips of sugar water? (or other forms of liquid refreshment)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hummingb...

    ...and what's its endurance? Any longer than that video?

    1. Brutus
      Boffin

      ...ird's flight time

      Is apparently in excess of eight minutes - that being the minimum performance requirement from DARPA according to the press release.

  9. Stuart Halliday
    FAIL

    Several flaws...

    I bet it makes a devil of a noise though and battery life will be less than an hour.

    Maybe why that video was muted?

    It also needs a much better resolution camera.

    1. Cameron Colley

      Muted?

      The video I saw, and listened to, has sound -- and it buzzes pretty much as loudly as you would expect, so it's not "stealthy".

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Is this going to lead to....

    More of those "paranoid Arabs killing birds" stories? Think of the collateral damage to the actual world hummingbird population!!

  11. Pablo
    Thumb Up

    Whoa!

    And it actually looks like a humming bird. Nice touch. I wasn't expecting that.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Pablo, were you expecting it to look like

      a horse?

      1. Christopher 1
        Joke

        @Martin Budden

        I dunno, that might be highly effective. If someone was reporting a flying horse to their higher ups, I wouldn't tend to put much stock in it.

  12. Denarius
    Boffin

    flapping wings?

    looks more like a ducted fan with wings used as disguise or stabilty control than ornithopter.

    flight time 90 seconds ?

    Still an achievement for that weight.

  13. Eddy Ito

    Oh dear

    This could easily be the most popular cat toy to ever be invented.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      RE: Oh dear

      DARPA produces superhightech-hummingbird-spygadget at $x00,000 a pop, Taleban shrug and buy dozens of kittens at the Peshawar market for a few Rupees each.....

  14. kryptonaut

    Power supply

    Looks very convincing, but I suspect it's powered externally - at 1:32 you can see something like a fine wire glinting in the sunlight. Still, impressive bit of kit and I'd be happy to get one for Christmas - although maybe if they have a chaffinch model it'd look less out of place round my way.

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Go

      The wires are what it lands on...

      See title...

      1. kryptonaut

        The wires are what it lands on...

        Ah yes - on closer inspection it seems you are right, there is some kind of springy wire tripod arrangement for it to land on. Neat!

  15. bugalugs

    @ Power Supply

    The glint seems to come from a revolvable weighted arm visible also at 1:28; some sort of balancing or orientation mechanism, perhaps.

  16. Astarte

    Does it 'Tweet'?

    Interesting demo - I expect there'll be a big following on the birdseed, sorry - birdbrain, site.

    Congrats to the developers, it must have been fun developing it.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    slinky Russian secret-agent-cum

    that's quite enough.....

  18. CASIOMS-8V

    I hope it looks like a boy humming bird

    Or there could be some really interesting video feeds during mating season

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    rubber-band powered in 1987

    Street vendors were selling these in Aachen and Paris in 1987. So its only taken 20+ years for the battery/cpu/gyro tech to catch up.

    Of course they were annoying back then too.

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