Credit: Willem Hoebink & Xander van der Sar

Welcome at Stanford's BIRD lab! 
[Bio-Inspired Research & Design]

How do birds morph their body to maximize flight control and performance? | Credit: Jean Francois Cornuet

Why can animals fly effortless through environments that are visually and aerodynamically cluttered? | Credit: Henk Jan Jansen

What enables birds to turn on a dime? | Credit: David Lentink & Jan Wouter Kruyt

How does massive sensory integration enable animals to be super maneuverable? | Credit Joris Schaap & Emile van Wijk





Which aerodynamic mechanisms enable even the simplest organisms to fly stably in turbulence? | Credit: David Lentink



Lab Messages

10/26/2014

Students featured on TV/TECHKNOW

TechKnow | Al Jazeera America, visited our lab to learn more about our bird flight research & robot design. Rivers, Amanda and Eric explained their work on camera and talked about Hummingbird aerodynamics, parrotlet laser goggles for flow measurement...


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10/10/2014

2-3yr Postdoc bird aerodynamics

The ideal candidate has a background in wind tunnel research of low Reynolds number flow using Tomographic PIV, with experience in studying biofluid dynamics or biomechanics. We are looking for either an engineer / physicist who is keen on working wi...


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05/22/2014

Nature inspires drones of the future

Our special issue of Bioinspiration & Biomimetics on  bio-inspired flight control  got published. It was been covered by  BBC ,  NYT  and other media. The issue has 14 papers from leading groups at Harvard, UPenn, St...


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TEDx Amsterdam

David Lentink | Bio-inspired Flight

Nature is a great source of inspiration; ever since we first saw animals fly we dreamed of flight. Our dream came true with the invention of the airplane by Lilienthal & the Wright Brothers, who were inspired by birds a century ago. 100 years is, however, extremely recent
on an evolutionary time scale — we can still learn from birds. Currently there is a new wave of bio-inspired innovation that is revolutionizing the design of micro flying robots. Professor Lentink has worked for several years with collaborators and students to solve key biological questions that enable the design of innovative flying robots. In his TEDx talk Lentink explains the ideas that made it all possible.

CNN Feature

The Art of Movement | Bird Flight

Click this link to see The Art of Movement . CNN visited the lab in September 2013 to learn more about how we study bird flight as an inspiration for developing flying robots. The crew visited us on campus and at our field station for two days. Since we just started, it was great to see that many lab members were able to demonstrate their bird flight research and robot development. The excellent organization by several first year graduate lab members promises a wonderful grand opening of our new bird wind tunnel facility in 2014.