It's a Nano Hummingbird!
Aerovironment has been working on this since 2006. Under a $4 million contract from Darpa they have a hummingbird drone that weighs 19 grams, flies 11 mph, can hover, fly forwards, backwards or sideways, turn clockwise and counterclockwise and flight time is 8 minutes.
19 grams! Battery, motors, communications, video camera, and hummingbird paint scheme. That's less than 4 nickels in weight.
The pentagon mileposts for this project include hovering in a 5 mph wind, fly indoors and back out through a normal size doorway.
Comment by Albert Augustine on February 20, 2011 at 8:07pm hmm a humingbird drone looks pretty good but 8 minutes of flight time is a little low
need that revolutionary battery tech maybe those solar cells or stick a wind turbine to it
@Paul Marsh
I need one of those
then all it needs is kevlar and some stinger missles then we can sell them to the goverment for millions haha
Comment by Duane Brocious on February 20, 2011 at 8:10pm
Comment by Andrew Van Der Plaats on February 21, 2011 at 4:07pm Saw this report on this project here as well today -
Comment by Duane Brocious on February 21, 2011 at 5:08pm An urban spy? 'cause nobody is going to notice a hummingbird in a city? They'll either take photos of it, try and catch it or shoot it. They should have made a spy pidgeon, even better a rat. Easier to do and wouldn't be noticed.
Did they really think this through before spending our tax dollars?
Comment by Hamish on February 21, 2011 at 6:10pm Comment
Season Two of the Trust Time Trial (T3) Contest has now begun. The fourth round is an accuracy round for multicopters, which requires contestants to fly a cube. The deadline is April 14th.24 members
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