Flapper Drones - Bioinspired flying robots

Looking for a bioinspired flying platform for your research or your creative projects?
Would you like to see robotic birds, butterflies or fairies flying during your concert, festival or in your theme park?
Experience the joy of building and flying your very own Flapper Drone
Flapper Drones fly like birds or insects by flapping their wings. To lift the drone, the wings need to flap back and forth 12 times per second. Having four wings, just like dragonflies do, improves flight stability and power efficiency. The wings and their motion have been carefully optimized in order to maximize the flight time per battery charge.
Turns and other maneuvers are executed by altering the motion and geometry of the individual wing pairs. An onboard flight computer is needed to assist flying these drones, since a human pilot alone is unable to steer fast enough. Using information from the on-board gyroscopic sensors (which are by the way also bioinspired), the computer updates the wing motion parameters as frequently as 500 times per second.
Having full control of the body rotations (roll, pitch and yaw) and the thrust force that the wings produce, Flapper Drones can fly in any direction. They can take off vertically like a helicopter, hover and fly forward/backward or sideways by tilting their body in the respective direction. The transition can be slow and smooth, but also very agile. A Flapper Drone can accelerate from hover to fast horizontal flight and revert back to stand still in no time.
Lightweight drone, no propellers. The wings of our Flapper Drones flap back and forth, gently bouncing off objects, causing no damage.
The naturally moving wings give the Flapper Drones an attractive look, which can be further enhanced by custom organic-looking shells illuminated with programmable RGB lights.
The wings and body-shell of the Flapper Drones are fully customizable. The drone has sufficient thrust reserves to integrate a different autopilot system or additional sensors.
We design our Flapper Drones to be robust and easily serviceable. The critical components (wings, flapping mechanisms, ..) can be easily replaced in no time.
Flapper Drones can be controlled just like a quadrotor; up/down, forward/backward or sideways. It can be operated autonomously using a localization system (motion capture, UWB, GPS).
We provide ready-to-fly flapping-wing drone platforms as well as customized solutions for your bio-inspired research and creative projects. Whether you are an academic research group, drone show operator or an artist, we understand your needs and, as a university spinoff, we are always excited to explore new territories.
Programmable & open sourceDeploy your own algorithms.
Gather dataLive telemetry and on-board data logging.
Extra payload capacityAdd sensors, or a larger battery.
Easy servicingCritical components can be easily replaced in no time.
Custom solutionsWe have the expertise as well as curiosity.
We help create unique visual experiences with drone show operators, artists, festivals, theme parks or theaters. We get together with our clients to understand their needs and work together on customized solutions.
Inherently safe drones Lightweight, no fast-spinning propellers. Fly close to people for a more captivating experience.
Customizable designHummingbird, butterfly, fairy… Imagination has no limits!
AutonomousPosition-controlled indoor flight.
Light effectsControl the color patterns and illumination of each drone.
The DIY kit’s intuitive design allows for a fun and engaging experience. It is a hands on approach to learning a novel flying mechanism. The assembled drone can be controlled precisely but also flown dynamically, and thus offers loads of fun both indoors as well as outdoors.
Easy to buildHave fun & learn how it works.
Easy to flyEasier and more intuitive than quadcopter.
Learn new tricksFly forward, sideways or do flips.
Be creativeCome up with your own shells and wing designs.
Program itDevelop code, add sensors and make the drone autonomous.
Matěj is a mechanical engineer with a PhD in Engineering Sciences. He has 10 years of experience in development and research of flapping wing aerial vehicles at Delft University of Technology and at Université Libre de Bruxelles. Matěj is also a passionate mountainbiker and participates in long-distance bikepacking events.
Rick is an experienced aerospace engineer. He spent a large part of his career as aerodynamics specialist in the automotive industry, and has been running an engineering consultancy company for the past 25 years. Rick is also an active participant of international RC-model-airplane competitions.
Guido is a professor at TU Delft, Netherlands. Being the scientific lead of the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory, his research interest lies with computationally efficient, bio-inspired algorithms for robot autonomy, with an emphasis on computer vision. The laboratory also develops lightweight flying robots, such as the DelFly flapping wing MAV.
When designing our flying robots, we search inspiration among hummingbirds, dragonflies and other flying animals.
Experience & passionBeing a university spin-off, we have over 10 years of experience with researching flapping flight and developing flapping wing robots at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). Being engineers by education, we are passionate about nature and its ingenious solutions. Over the years our bio-inspired technology matured, and eventually became ready for real world applications.
Entertainment, and beyondOur journey began by creating solutions for the entertainment industry, but we soon encountered new opportunities in the R&D and research spaces. Ultimately, we aspire to create a new class of flapping wing drones for professionals as well as consumers interested in non-intrusive and safe drone solutions in human-shared spaces. The possibilities are endless… Engage with us and let’s explore them together!
As of March