Quantitative analysis of the morphing wing mechanism of raptors:IMMU-based motion capture system and its application on gestures of a Falco peregrinus

This paper presented a novel tinny motion capture system for measuring bird posture based on inertial and magnetic measurement units that are made up of micromachined gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers. Multiple quaternion-based extended Kalman filters were implemented to estimate the absolute orientations to achieve high accuracy.Under the guidance of ornithology experts, the extending/contracting motions and flapping cycles were recorded using the developed motion capture system, and the orientation of each bone was also analyzed. The captured flapping gesture of the Falco peregrinus is crucial to the motion database of raptors as well as the bionic design.

Genetic Differences between Wild and Captive Populations of the Peregrine Falcon （Falco peregrinus） and the Saker Falcon （Falco cherrug） Living in the Czech Republic

The microsatellite analysis of DNA plays an important role in studying the population genetics such as population structure, genetic variability and diversity, phylogenetic relationships of wild population of endangered species. The main aim of this study was the estimation of ten microsatellite markers variability in the F. cherrug and F. peregrinus populations. We investigated genetic diversity and structure of populations by using non-invasive genetic identification of individuals to characterize populations of raptors living in the captivity and wild in the Czech Republic during the breeding seasons 2009 and 2010. Within Falco cherrug, significant moderate genetic differentiation （FsT） was observed between Falco cherrug wild and captive. This means that there could be a little differentiation between the wild and the captive populations caused by Falco cherrug subspecies origin or hybridization in the captivity. The absence of significant genetic differentiation between Falco peregrinus wild and captive may be caused by the influence of reintroduction the captive populations in the past. Whereas one breeding population ofFalco peregrinus （Kokorinsko2 2010） was clustered by UPGMA dendrogram into the individual group, we assumed this population like independent, maybe not influenced by other groups. Moreover, a larger sample size would be necessary to confirm the hypothesis.

Quantitative analysis of the morphing wing mechanism of raptors: Analysis methods, folding motions, and bionic design of Falco Peregrinus

Raptors can change the shape and area of their wings to an exceptional degree in a fast and efficient manner,surpassing other birds,insects,or bats.Some researchers have focused on the functional properties of muscle skeletons,mechanics,and flapping robot design.However,the wing motion of the birds of prey has not been measured quantitatively,and synthetic bionic wings with morphing abilities similar to raptors are far from reality.Therefore,in the current study,a 3D suspension system for holding bird carcasses was designed and fabricated to fasten the wings of Falco Peregrinus with a series of morphing postures.Subsequently,the wing skeleton of the falcon was scanned during extending motions using the computed tomography(CT)approach to obtain three consecutive poses.Subsequently,the skeleton was reconstructed to identify the contribution of the forelimb bones to the extending/folding motions.Inspired by these findings,we propose a simple mechanical model with four bones to form a wing-morphing mechanism using the proposed pose optimisation method.Finally,a bionic wing mechanism was implemented to imitate the motion of the falcon wing—divided into inner and outer wings with folding and twisting motions.The results show that the proposed four-bar mechanism can track bone motion paths with high fidelity.