How Hummingbirds Inspire Scientists

How the wings of owls and hummingbirds inspire drones, wind turbines and other technology

- Hummingbirds are remarkable creatures that can hover, fly backwards, and maneuver in tight spaces with ease.

- Their wings beat up to 80 times per second, creating a humming sound that gives them their name.

- Scientists are fascinated by hummingbirds and their unique abilities, and they study them to learn more about aerodynamics, metabolism, and evolution.

- Some of the ways that hummingbirds inspire scientists are:

  - Developing micro air vehicles that can mimic the hummingbird's flight patterns and agility.

  - Understanding how hummingbirds can switch between hovering and fast forward flight without losing stability or efficiency.

  - Investigating how hummingbirds can regulate their body temperature and energy consumption in different environments and seasons.

  - Exploring how hummingbirds evolved their specialized morphology and physiology to adapt to diverse habitats and nectar sources.

Hummingbirds are some of the tiniest birds in the world. They possess small, lightweight torsos with relatively large wings that allow them to fly remarkably fast with incredible precision. But many types of birds have large wings, so what sets hummingbirds apart when it comes to their amazing manoeuvrability?

The secret lies within their muscles and bones.

Hummingbirds require large wing muscles to continually flap their wings quickly during flight, known as a high wing beat frequency. High wing beat frequency allows hummingbirds to perform their unique hovering flight, especially during their summer visits to your flowers and backyard feeders. #hummingbirds #science #hummingbird #hummingbirdflight Hummingbirds need large amounts of energy to fly continuously and gather food. Additionally, the adaptation of a long chest bone is the perfect surface needed for wing muscles: the larger the surface of the chest bone, the more muscle can be connected. In order to hover, hummingbirds flap their wings in the shape of a figure eight. This wing beat style is made possible by continuous “wrist flicks” from their shortened arm bone — a unique characteristic not found in any other bird species. By working together, the muscles and bones of hummingbirds allow for hovering and sideways and backwards flight at speeds that top 50 km/hr. When scientists looked at how the muscles and bones of hummingbirds come together to generate fast, precise flight in these tiny birds, they became interested in whether these same mechanisms could be engineered. An example of this inspiration is AeroVironment’s Nano Hummingbird, developed as a prototype for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Nano Hummingbird is a drone device that mimics the flight of hummingbirds to gain an agile, manoeuvrable edge. These drones can access unreachable locations and gather information via an attached video camera. With more research on hummingbird flight precision and its everyday implications, having drones that can effectively examine natural uncharted territories might happen sooner than previously believed. These drone advancements can be applied to weather monitoring, parcel shipping and even cinematography. A paper last fall showed that hummingbird flight technique is more similar to that of insects than other birds: They generate lift on both the upstroke and downstroke. The research into hummingbird flight could help researchers determine the right wing size to help tiny flying drones be more efficient. Hummingbirds occupy a unique place in nature: They fly like insects but have the musculoskeletal system of birds. According to Bo Cheng, the Kenneth K. and Olivia J. Kuo Early Career Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State, hummingbirds have extreme aerial agility and flight forms, which is why many drones and other aerial vehicles are designed to mimic hummingbird movement. Hummingbirds’ tiny frames cast a huge shadow over the drone and aerial vehicle industry—their recognizable, precise flight and hovering maneuvers long used as inspiration for artificial wings and other propellers. As influential as they are, however, much of what is understood about the birds’ movements is drawn largely from flight activity observances in both real-life and artificial environments. That comparatively limited knowledge has been greatly expanded upon by researchers at Penn State University recently “reverse engineered” the musculoskeletal system of hummingbird wings to provide some of the best details yet regarding the tiny avian animals’ movements. Now, a wealth of new information is becoming available for designers of the next generation of drones. Like other birds, most hummingbirds fly forward using downward strokes of their wings to get lift. But hummingbirds have the ability to hover. A hummingbird sweeps its wings mostly horizontally to hover. It rotates its wings in a figure-eight pattern which pushes air forward, backward and downward, generating lift force on both forward and back strokes of the wing. By adjusting the angle of its wings and tail, it can hover on the spot, move forward or backward or pivot to either side. Rufous hummingbirds, which breed in British Columbia, have reached 200 strokes per second during courtship! The fast strokes of hummingbird wings push air backwards and forwards