Edwin Van Ruymbeke's Swift is a Bird-Like Ornithopter Drone that Flies By Flapping Its Wings
Third crowdfunding campaign for Van Ruymbeke promises to deliver a more robust and performant drone design.
Engineer Edwin Van Ruymbeke has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a remote-controlled aircraft with a difference: inspired by the swift, it flies at up to 31km/h (around 19 miles per hour) by flapping its wings.
"The Swift is a high-performance biomimetic drone (ornithopter) that flies using pure flapping wings, just like a real bird," Van Ruymbeke explains of his creation. "Instead of propellers forcing air downward, The Swift generates lift through real aerodynamics — producing a flight that feels more natural, more fluid, and far more engaging.
"Designed for both thrilling speed and precise low-speed control, The Swift can fly fast in open air, slow down gracefully indoors, and remain stable and predictable thanks to onboard sensors and smart flight assistance. This is not a propeller drone. It's a new category of flying experience — where piloting feels closer to flying than to operating a machine."
The bird-inspired remote-controlled craft can travel at speeds up to 31km/h (around 19mph) while remaining stable in flight speeds as low as 3.5km/h (around 2.2mph). This is achieved, its creator claims, using a custom-built motor and battery system and aerodynamics directly inspired by nature. The app-based remote control system, with or without the X-Play joystick add-on accessory, is rated to retain connectivity out to a 500-feet range.
The Swift's stable flight characteristics come from what Van Ruymbeke describes as a "next-gen stabilization system" incorporating real-time corrections from an on-board STMicroelectronics LSM6DSR six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) linked to an STM32WB15CC microcontroller — with the amount of corrections adjustable from "raw feel" up to "highly assisted." The body, meanwhile, weighs under 10.9g (around 0.38lbs), yet is claimed to offer "impact-friendly resilience."
That last feature will be of interest to those that have backed Van Ruymbeke's previous ornithopter projects, the XFly and the MetaFly. In addition to a handful of complaints regarding a failure to deliver promised hardware, backers for these earlier designs have reported poor handling and fragile bodies — issues now claimed to be addressed in the Swift.
Those who believe in the saying "third time's the charm" can back the Swift campaign on Kickstarter now, with physical rewards starting at €79 (around $94) for launch-day backers; all hardware is expected to ship in September this year.