Hasta La Ideas

A jellyfish-inspired drone might not garner as much media buzz as the Amazon Delivery Drones or make an Hollywood entrance like the Star Trek promotion featuring a batch of “Hummingbird” drones, but its design is noteworthy for other reasons.

According to a story on National Geographic, researchers at New York University have created a drone design that mimics the movements of a jellyfish in action (click through to view the unembeddable video of the design in flight). Applied Mathematician Leif Ristroph was looking to create a device inspired by insect wings, but ran into a few issues with the idea:

Insects have built-in sensors and feedback that help them stay upright. Drones based on insect wings need the same support. But motors, sensors and batteries add weight, which becomes problematic for people looking to design smaller and smaller drones. I wanted to design something that had stability without the stability-sensor needs.

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