Japan team builds falcon-like drone that lands softly on your palm

Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s DRAGON Lab have developed a falcon-inspired flapping-wing drone capable of safely landing on a person’s palm without cushions. Unlike traditional propeller drones, this drone uses soft, flexible wings that mimic bird flight, resulting in quieter operation and a gentler presence ideal for close human interaction. The design is inspired by falconry and represents the first successful contact-based interaction between a flapping-wing drone and a human, emphasizing safety through careful flight planning that accounts for physical and psychological factors such as distance, altitude, approach direction, and velocity. The drone maintains a minimum distance of 0.3 meters from the user’s chest, slows down as it approaches, and stays within a comfortable altitude range between the elbow and eye level. It is controlled through intuitive hand gestures—bending the arm signals the drone to hover, while extending the arm commands it to approach and land. A sophisticated motion capture system with multiple cameras tracks markers on the user and drone, enabling