Studying bees could allow drones to run better

Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, paid particular attention to the perfect tricks that bees seem to make during the flight. The more scientists understand these turns, the more they will be able to replicate their flight patterns with the help of drones and other forms of human flight.

In order to obtain quality images of bees in flight, researchers have temporarily blocked access to their hive. Unable to enter, the bees began to create a "bee cloud" on the outside. With high-speed cameras monitoring each of their movements, the bees swarmed while making a large number of sharp turns.

Bees slow down when entering their turns and accelerate out. But, according to a Queensland press release, the bees "were able to maintain a virtually constant centripetal acceleration while turning, regardless of the precision of the turns or the speed with which the bees moved."

"When a bee turns, it intelligently reduces its speed appropriately, so that the centrifugal force that it undergoes is always constant," says PhD student Mahadeeswara Mandiyam, who helped lead the study. , in the press release.

"The tighter the turn is and the faster the bee goes, the greater the centrifugal force. the bee solves this problem by slowing down when it makes tighter turns, "says Mandiyam.

Understanding how bees rotate and how to avoid collisions is at the heart of Mandiyam's work. Learning how some of nature's best travelers work in apparent chaos would be a huge boon.

"If the vehicle has to negotiate a sharp turn, it has to do it in such a way that the centrifugal force is within reasonable limits, otherwise it can take off from what is called a skid."

Studying bees could help drivers "avoid sideways slips in overhead and ground vehicles," says Mandiyam.

It would not be the first human innovation in the animal world. Scientists have recently used another flying insect, wasps, as a means of transport to transport heavy objects. Animals like spiders and monkeys have also helped scientists create new types of robots. There is no reason why a bee is not so inspiring.

Source: Queensland