Nano Air Vehicle

Everyone loves finding maple seeds in the spring and trying to get them to fly like helicopter wings. The maple tree is part of the Acer family; it is Latin for “Sharp”. These seeds that we grew up playing with may have gone as far as a mile before settling down. As the seeds fall from the trees auto-rotation takes place, it allows the seeds to gain a little extra air as it falls. These small seeds caught the attention of David Lentink, an aerospace engineer; he realized that there was something there with in the design of these seeds. He saw ran a few studies and saw that there are a lot of the same commonalities between a seed and an oil tank. He filled a small tunnel in his labs and filled it with smoke, taping the seed as it fell. He saw that the falling seed creates tornado like effect that happens around the edges of the seed. This is much like a set of helicopter wings this pulls the edge of the seed up increasing an opposition of gravity. This simple design from nature has inspired scientists to create the Nano Air Vehicle (NAV’s). This device is remote controlled to aid the military in checking for missions that might be in difficult weather. What the purpose if this new technology is so that when flying over an area military personal can drop the NAV’s out of a plane, they can control where they are headed by using the remote control as well as the camera that is placed in the wing of the unit, it send back information to the personnel in a hand held unit. This small piece can travel at 10 meters per second and can go as far as a 1,000 meters. After sending all of the information needed the remote can have the NAV come back to the personnel to be adjusted for it next mission. This new technology can aid the military in mane new ways. New functions for it are being developed. All of this information can from an idea of a simple seedling falling from a tree, a another well thought out design from Mother Nature. Lockheed Martin Tree Hugger