It’s no surprise that DARPA in the USA invests money in some very interesting, and sometimes weird, projects. One of the recent ones are are Nano Air Vehicle, or NAV in short.
Nano Air Vehicle is being developed by AeroVironment and is basically a hummingbird. Well, it looks like one, that is. It has wings instead of rotating chopper blades.
The prototype shown in the video below is part of the project that’s been ongoing for 2 years. It shows how they remote control their bird, though it only has enough power to be airborne for about 20 seconds.
At this time, DARPA believes so much in the project that they invested 2.1 million dollars for further research and development. Their goal is to develop a Nano Air Vehicle what weighs only 10 grams (0.35 ounces) and will allow it to fly for more than 20 seconds and up to 10 meter per second.
Just one problem though – it will only allow for wind gust up to 2.5 meter/seconds….
Check out the video – it’s pretty cool. I’d buy one. Wowwee, get to it!
Its pretty cool gadget for military
Not only for military – I would definately like one too, I bet it’s just as fun as a RC helicopter 🙂