DOD funding will help build new bird flight research center at UC Davis
DAVIS – UC Davis has hatched up at plan to build a bird flight research center thanks to funding from the Department of Defense.
The California Raptor Center at UC Davis preserves and protects birds of prey.
"These birds take a lot of intensive care," said the director of the center, Michelle Hawkins, as she showed some of the birds they have saved. "We deal with traumatic brain injuries because of the traumas these birds get. So that's translational to human medicine."
Now their rehabilitation and research is taking flight.
"Aircraft right now are designed for specific missions, and often maneuverability and adaptability are second to those key missions like emissions and things like that," said Christina Harvey, an assistant professor with UC Davis Engineering.
Harvey is a Michigan transplant who helped write a nearly $3 million grant with the Department of Defense to build a bird flight research center. The goal is to design and develop the next generation off uncrewed aerial systems, or drones, so they can more effectively do tasks like deliver packages or fight wildfires.
The building will have 44 motion cameras that capture birds in flight.
"If you want an aircraft that can fly through the forest or perform very quick maneuvers, or adjust to different conditions, birds are really the best example for how we can do that," Harvey said.
The facility is currently in its planning stages, but preliminary studies with birds are already underway.
Hawkins plans to use the imagery and modeling of birds in flight to target rehab efforts.
"We can see if we conditioned them correctly, and if there's any weaknesses," Hawkins said. "This is going to bring a tool to us in rehabilitation that nobody else has."
The building will get started in the fall of 2024. It will be at least a year until the motion data and shapes start coming in.