The tiny hummingbird still has a wing up on manmade drones, according to a new study.
Stanford University researchers compared the lift and torque of hummingbird wings to the performance of a tiny drone from Prox Dynamics called the Black Hornet.
The researchers used a wing spinner to get more accurate measurements from each hummingbird wing; instead of flapping each wing, the device spun it in a circle.
Along with his team, lead researcher David Lentink found the top-performing hummingbirds were about 20% more efficient than the human-engineered aircraft. Not every hummingbird is the same, but when you compare the one that requires the least power to lift its weight with a drone, the hummingbird wins. Twelve different hummingbirds were measured in the study.
The researchers published their findings last month in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.