These are the principles of the Nano Air Vehicle or Micro Air Vehicle program of the agency for advanced research projects for defense, better known as "Darpa", of the US government.
Specifically, the Nav or Mav program involves the design of small and ultralight aircraft with a length of less than fifteen centimeters, a maximum weight of 20 grams, with the ability to perform missions for the acquisition of information for intelligence purposes in open and closed places.
These platforms fall into the UAV category, but with features taken directly from the animal world.
Due to their small size, they are considered as "impossible to hit" by enemy fire: this is why their use is of particular interest to the military.
Nav studies began in the 2005. The first experimental Nav built was the Hummingbird (hummingbird), developed by AeroVironment. The American defense, which has invested four million dollars in the project, has high hopes for the future. The Hummingbird, presented to the public on February 17 of the 2011, despite being a prototype has some exceptional features. It can fly at 18 km / h, with trim, direction and speed remotely adjustable. The small automated hummingbird can climb vertically taking altitude, move to the right and left, rotate on itself and remain suspended in mid-air. The most amazing thing, however, are the dimensions: the wingspan is 160 millimeters while the weight is less than 19 grams.
However, the development of these vehicles is still at an embryonic stage due to the limitations of current technology and the very strict parameters imposed by the American defense such as the wingspan set at a maximum of 7,5 centimeters, an automated anti-collision navigation system (thought, that is, to fly inside buildings), a powerful communication system in addition to on-board cameras.
Another problem is the power of the Navs. The current battery technology, in fact, is not advanced enough to offer the right energy support for missions that could last even hours. To date, in fact, the batteries that would provide enough energy to operate the Mavs are too heavy, while the lighter ones would be exhausted before the aircraft returned to the base. An idea put forward by Darpa, precisely to deal with this problem, could be that of an Mav capable of relying, as a bird would do, on an electric power cable: in this way it could be recharged during the mission.
But in addition to the design of micro aircraft, research is also shifting to the animal world for the creation of a cyber insect. The proposal dates back to the 2007 for the creation of a biological UAV. That is, installing a suite of sensors on a live animal, so as to control it from a distance. Challenge won by the University of California, which in the 2009 managed to remotely control, through six electrodes installed in the brain and nervous system, a scarab beetle (chosen for its capacity to carry up to three grams of weight).
To date, however, the only MAV used in an operating environment is the Black Hornet Nano, a micro-helicopter of ten centimeters, weighing just 16 grams, supplied to the British army in Afghanistan. The Black Hornet (opening photo), built by the Norwegian company Prox Dynamics, taking off from the palm of the hand, can fly for thirty minutes, with a range of half a mile at a maximum speed of 35 km / h. It is remotely controlled via a console with a color screen. Avionics is surprising for a helicopter of just 16 grams: in addition to all the miniaturized subsystems of the "big brothers", the onboard suite includes a GPS, an antenna for real-time high-speed data transfer, a mode autopilot, three cameras with tilt and zoom and the ability to return to the base automatically, in case of signal loss or almost exhausted battery. It is used for reconnaissance missions.
Franco Iacch
