XI'AN -- In a breakthrough for bio-inspired robotics, a team of Chinese engineers has designed a robot that flaps its wings and is capable of autonomous takeoff, much like a bird.

Named RoboFalcon2.0, the robot mimics the wing motion of birds and bats, achieving controlled flight through a novel reconfigurable mechanism.

The study, published in Science Advances, details how the robot replicates the flap-sweep-fold (FSF) motion observed in flying vertebrates during slow flight.

Flying vertebrates tend to use complicated wingbeat kinematics during hovering, takeoff and landing, differing from the flight mechanisms of insects. It features ventrally anterior downstrokes and aerodynamically inactive upstrokes to enhance aerodynamic characteristics at low airspeeds.

The engineers from Northwestern Polytechnical University developed a conical rocker mechanism that couples flapping, sweeping and folding within a single wingbeat cycle, mimicking vertebrate slow-flight kinematics.

Real-world flights have validated RoboFalcon2.0's self-takeoff capabilities, according to the study.

This innovative step could inspire future designs for agile avian-inspired vehicles through vertebrate-like actuation principles, enabling more biomimetic flapping-wing designs.