Opportunistic soaring by birds suggests new opportunities for atmospheric energy harvesting by flying robots

The use of flying robots (drones) is increasing rapidly, but their utility is limited by high power demand, low specific energy storage and poor gust tolerance. By contrast, birds demonstrate long endurance, harvesting atmospheric energy in environments ranging from cluttered cityscapes to open landscapes, coasts and oceans. Here, we identify new opportunities for flying robots, drawing upon the soaring flight of birds. We evaluate mechanical energy transfer in soaring from first principles and review soaring strategies encompassing the use of updrafts (thermal or orographic) and wind gradients (spatial or temporal). We examine the extent to which state-of-the-art flying robots currently use each strategy and identify several untapped opportunities including slope soaring over built environments, thermal soaring over oceans and opportunistic gust soaring. In principle, the energetic benefits of soaring are accessible to flying robots of all kinds, given atmospherically aware sensor systems, guidance strategies and gust tolerance. Hence, while there is clear scope for specialist robots that soar like albatrosses, or which use persistent thermals like vultures, the greatest untapped potential may lie in non-specialist vehicles that make flexible use of atmospheric energy through path planning and flight control, as demonstrated by generalist flyers such as gulls, kites and crows.