Festo Air Penguins - See them in action

Catch the Festo Air Penguins ON Wednesday on BBC 1 at 19.30 (Wednesday 3rd November).

The BBC is screening a new series on innovation using the Bristol based, Aardman Animation’s cartoon characters – Wallace and Gromit.

Earlier this year, a BBC production team from this series visited our Technology Centre in Germany to film the Festo Bionic Concepts.

Festo AirPenguin – autonomously flying robotic penguins


With the AirPenguins, the engineers from Festo have created artificial penguins and have taught them "autonomous flight in the sea of air".

For this purpose, control and regulating technology had to be further developed into self-regulating biomechatronic systems, which could also play a future role in adaptive production and inturn be featured in Festo Products.


The opening program of the series featuring the Festo AirPenguins and other Bionic concepts will be broadcast in prime time this Wednesday on BBC 1 at 19.30 (Wednesday 3rd November).

For more info about the program – follow the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vt1xp

Technical data

Overall length: 3.70 m

Max. torso diameter: 0.88 m

Helium volume: 0.980 cbm

Wing span: 2.48 m

Weight: 1.0 kg

Control of wings, head and

tail segments: 9 digital actuators, range 180°

Materials

Buoyancy body: aluminium-metallised foil,

22 g/qm

Head and tail segments: 3D Fin Ray Effect

carbon-fibre rods

Wings: extruded polyurethane foam

Wing strut: carbon-fibre rod

Accumulator battery for

wing drive and torso orientation: Li-Po battery, 2000 mAh, 4.2 V

Receiver sensors: 32-bit microcontroller @ 50 MHz

MCU 2x LM3S811

64 kbyte flash, 8 kbyte RAM

Altitude measurement: SCP 1000 pressure sensor

Distance measurement: ultrasound receiver capsules

Measurement of rotation rate

about vertical axis: Lisy 300-AL gyroscope

Directional and positional sensors: positionally compensated 3-axis

compass with accelerometer

Temperature measurement: temperature sensor

2.4 GHz radio transmission: based on ZigBee

Current and voltage monitoring

for Li-Po cell

Overvoltage protection: DS2764 Li-Po protector

Charging controller for Li-Po cell: Max1555 charging controller

Accumulator battery: Li-Po battery, 2000 mAh, 4.2 V

Base stations/

transmitting stations: 32-bit microcontroller @ 50 MHz

MCU LM3S811

64 kbyte flash, 8 kbyte RAM

Altitude measurement: SCP 1000 pressure sensor

Distance measurement: ultrasound transmitters

Temperature measurement: temperature sensor

2.4 GHz radio transmission: based on ZigBee

Current and voltage monitoring

for Li-Po cell

Overvoltage protection: DS2764 Li-Po protector

Charging controller for Li-Po cell: Max1555 charging controller

Energy reserve for approx. 50 h

continuous operation: Li-Po battery, 2000 mAh, 4.2 V

If you would like to discuss any ideas or projects you may have using Festo Products please contact us direct at Electroquip