As part of the See Further Festival at the Southbank Centre in London, Festo were giving a display of their AirPenguin and AirJelly future concepts. These feats of engineering have been inspired by nature and certainly have an eerily graceful natural motion to them, witnessing a pair of Festo’s artificial penguins flying effortlessly through the air in close formation is something that has to be seen to be believed!
Despite being beautiful crowd pleasers, wowing children and adults alike they do have a more practical application, the knowledge gained from this research project is being put to good use in the automation of production processes. In the case of the AirPenguins the principles behind their formation flying can be used to produce autonomous systems that work in close cooperation to complete major tasks.
Check out the videos below for an up close encounter with both the AirPenguins and the AirJelly, and keep an eye out for these marvels at Science and Technology exhibitions in the future.