Researchers from New York University's Applied Math Lab created a jellyfish aircraft The Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday.
"We were interested first of all in making a robotic insect that would be an alternative to the helicopter," Leif Ristroph a fluid dynamics researcher at NYU's Applied Math Lab, told Agence France-Presse. "Our interest ended up being a little bit weird. It was the jellyfish," Ristroph told Agence France-Press. If it's knocked over, it stabilizes by itself."
The aircraft's motor or engine has light carbon-fibre ribs, framed wings surrounded by see-through mylar film which can be found at regular stores with modeling stores Agence France-Press reported. The aircraft is 2.1 grams or 0.07 ounces, and is the initial device known to fly and shift similar to a jellyfish The Frances Presse reported.
Researchers are using the aircraft to show that a jellyfish aircraft can be built The France Presse reported.
Ristroph and co-researcher Stephen Childress at NYU's applied math lab became interested in their subject area after viewing videos showing how scientists attempted to imitate insects by making ornithopters. However, researchers did not know the steps to take or what was required The Frances-Press reported.
"We were inspired in part by videos from the 1900s, in the early experimental days of flying," Ristroph told The France-Press. "They were very creative in those days, they had lots of very good ideas, but also some bad ones," Ristroph told The France-Press.
"There's definitely some military use for things like this, such as in surveillance, but I hope that it has a civilian outlet too," Ristroph told The France-Press. "I can imagine a cluster of a hundred of these being thrown out and fanning out across in a city to monitor air pollution," Ristroph told The France-Press. "We usually call it our flying jellyfish. But the name AeroJelly would be cool!" Ristroph told The France-Press.
