A recent Air Force tech exercise in the Mojave Desert featured a wing-flapping drone that evaded sensor detection by mimicking the flight mechanics of a bird. The drone, called the O1, was designed by Ornadyne and is capable of flapping its wings to stay in the air, making it quieter and more difficult to detect than traditional drones.
According to Armen Arakelyan, one of Ornadyne's co-founders, the O1 is designed to resemble a bird and can be misclassified as one by humans and counter-UAS systems. The O1 drone was tested at the "Game of Drones" event at Edwards Air Force Base, where it successfully evaded detection by sensors built by other private companies.
The drone weighs 1 pound and can fly up to 10 kilometers for over an hour, carrying a small payload such as a camera for surveillance missions. Ornadyne's co-founders claim that the drone can change its color, wingspan, proportions, and silhouette to match a native bird species, allowing it to blend in with its environment.
The test marked the first time that Ornadyne had tested its drone's ability to hide from detection systems, and the results were successful, with the drone registering as a bird on the sensors. This technology has the potential to be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering, and is not the first example of a bird-like drone, with other companies and countries also developing similar technology.