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IT Home reported on July 18 that researchers at the Intelligent Systems Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) have developed a new type of drone that can land by hitting trees or poles and wrapping its wings around them, just like bats and owls. This unconventional design is expected to make it easier to deploy drones in hard-to-reach areas for surveillance or inspection missions.

According to IT Home, this drone named PercHug is equipped with dual-function articulated wings.During flight, the wing remains rigid and extended; upon impact, a tension line is released so that the wing becomes flexible and can wrap around the target object.The 550-gram drone has an "upturned nose design" that allows it to re-orient itself vertically after impact, the researchers explain in their paper published in the journal Nature. The impact also releases tension lines, allowing the drone's spring-loaded wings to wrap around the target and stay there.

Although the research team added fish hooks to the outside of the wing to enhance grip,But currently PercHug can only be successfully hung on trees or poles with a probability of 73%.This data is the test result after the drone performed a short-distance, slow-speed glide.

This unique landing method does not require an additional landing mechanism, allowing the drone to be lighter, thereby increasing the payload and flight distance. However, before carrying expensive sensors or cameras, the landing success rate still needs to be improved. In addition, the research team plans to add avionics and control surfaces to PercHug to make it more functional. Currently, the drone can only take off and glide manually and has no steering function. The research team also wants to find a way to allow it to detach from the tree trunk on its own and fly into the sky again.