Page 48 - Festo Smartbird

New horizons in automation

From the herring gull to SmartBird, from SmartBird to factory and process automation – there is a purpose to this path of learning. Through their technological knowledge gleaned in the development of SmartBird, the scientists and engineers from Festo are opening up far-reaching, promising perspectives for everyday human life.

SmartBird was born of insights from nature and from Jonathan's inspiration and idealism. Festo’s Bionic Lear-ning Network provided both the fertile ground and the framework for this development. Like a natural system, it engages in open exchange with its environment. To-gether with Festo’s experience and willingness to learn, it opens up new perspectives in engineering and inspires

its protagonists to pioneering innovations that will be encountered in everyday industrial life in a future characterised by responsibility.

SmartBird, with an overall weight of just 450 grams despite its wingspan of two meters, is extremely light. The engineers have been able to achieve this level of resource-efficiency above all thanks to their well-founded analysis of airflow phenomena and the material-saving use of carbon fibre technology. Festo will implement this acquired knowledge to the benefit of its customers in flow-optimised, energy-efficient product solutions that require only a minimum of installation space. With refined condition monitoring, the researchers