1) Materials technology which allows durable and light weight construction material of the bird.
2) Energy density, birds are notorious for having high energy metabolisms because flapping flight when manuevering is quite inefficient.
3) The kinematics are spot on, your brain says "this is a bird" which makes low altitude missions like surveillance much more reasonable.
The Festo guys are just showing off of course but it does seem like a meaningful contribution to the UAV design space.
1) Materials technology which allows durable and light weight construction material of the bird.
2) Energy density, birds are notorious for having high energy metabolisms because flapping flight when manuevering is quite inefficient.
3) The kinematics are spot on, your brain says "this is a bird" which makes low altitude missions like surveillance much more reasonable.
The Festo guys are just showing off of course but it does seem like a meaningful contribution to the UAV design space.