Innovation of the week

Engineers in Switzerland have designed a drone with maneuverable wings that resembles a hawk, said Rob Verger in Popular Science. The most popular drones today are either fixed-wing—similar to miniature airplanes—or use rotating propellers that “can act like wings and provide lift.” But roboticists wanted to create a more “birdlike drone that’s capable of cruising long distances at high speeds (like a fixedwing plane) while remaining highly maneuverable.” The result is the carbon-fiber LisHawk. It has “wings that can extend outward or tuck inward,” and a tail that can “fan out, and move up and down and side to side.” While the robo-hawk still needs a propeller “sticking out of its beak,” the shape-shifting concept is supposed to let it turn and dive more naturally, like the northern goshawk, its avian inspiration.