Search Here

Jellyfishes are considered remarkably efficient. They have such a body structure that can be used to easily translate to the air, similar to the way they swim in water.

A team of scientists from New York University have designed a flying robot that looks similar to jellyfish. The robot uses four flapping wings to stay in the air.

The first of its kind of flying robot can find its utility in the search-and-rescue and military operations with much more efficiency than present robots. Gradually these are expected to be used as environmental sensors too.

The machine has been designed by Leif Ristroph who is an assistant professor of mathematics at NYU.

“No one’s ever built this, and as far as we know nature never built it either to fly in air,” said Ristroph, according to NBC News. “Maybe that indicates that it’s a bad idea? In any case we got it to work, so maybe not that bad.”

The design was presented at the Fluid Dynamics Conference in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

Since water and air were both fluids, the rules governing movement in both of the medium is same. It was easier to remain afloat in water because of buoyancy. The real difficult was staying up in the air and generating a life to balance the body weight to the design.

“The final product doesn’t copy the jellyfish body design, but it does achieve a similarly stable motion,” said said Caltech professor John Dabiri, who studies the jellyfish’s swimming secret, according to LA Times. “Although it doesn’t look like the jellyfish that inspired it, I’m sure they would be proud.”