Researchers supported by France’s Defense Ministry are working to develop a more effective surveillance drone that’s also less prone to detection by its imitation of birds or insects.
L’Agence de l’innovation de défense (AID), a section of France’s Defense Ministry that encourages and finances development of new, military-applicable technologies, is backing the project. It has thrown its weight behind the stealth drone known as Biofly, which has already produced craft that resemble a bird and dragonfly-ish insect. The specific program the prototypes arose from were AID’s biomimetrics section, which studies biological organisms for the development materials or systems.
In this case, that involved learning how winged creatures of nature might allow data-collecting UAVs to do their work without being seen, or be identified if they are.
First to arise from that effort was a drone dubbed Bionic Bird (a choice thrusting the Defense Ministry into…
