To assist a human on board, drones are bound by the laws of aerodynamics, that means shapes strange and familiar, from palm-sized rafts which is similar as miniature helicopters.
The body shape of the drone is hiding the outward appearance of the robot which looks like an animal. The owl drone is acquired from the Zhukovsky or the Gagarin Air Force Academy.
It is not the first such bird-imitating drone from the Academy, which also has made a falcon-shaped drone. Beyond Russia, there’s a wide area of drones present that resembles like birds and used for everything from advertising sunscreen to scaring birds away from airports and also for spy drones for other militaries.
Samuel Bendett, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses says, “What’s interesting is that Russian designers are thinking creatively about UAV applications”. “Biomimicry permits the UAVs to perform in certain areas where the regular looking UAV would have been sighted and avoided.”
Owl Shaped Drone
Russian owl-drone uses an electric motor for the flight and brings a laser target to illuminate targets. The work of the owl drone is to track tanks, vehicles and other heavy equipment, spotting and then directing fire under the cover of its animal shape. The drone is designed to be similar as Snowy Owl, or a Ural Owl, though neither has a face quite as cartoonish as this robot.
Bendett says “In Russia’s part of Eurasia where hunting birds like owls, falcons and eagles are very common, a UAV that looks like a bird can become an invaluable ISR asset it can basically ‘hide’ in plain sight”.
Watch a video of Russian Owl Drone:
