Title:
Radio-Controlled Hummingbird Represents a New Breed
of Drone
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
A California company has developed a drone that
looks like a hummingbird. This nano-hummingbird is
smaller than drones now used by the United States
military. The manufacturer, AeroVironment, develops
and tests its drones near Los Angeles. The
experimental bird-like aircraft is radio-controlled
and has a camera. Matthew Keennon is supervising the
project.
MATTHEW KEENNON: "It's being manipulated and
controlled to allow the forward and backward flight,
the rotation, and also the side to side flight. And
all that's happening by just changing the curvature
and the shape and the different aspects of the wing
movement at a very high speed."
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency paid
for the project. Agency officials wanted a vehicle
that could copy something in nature. Matthew Keennon
says the challenge was huge and exciting.
MATTHEW KEENNON: "Because every time we made an
improvement, got better, we were just so amazed."
AeroViroment has also been testing one of the
world's largest drones. The company's Steven Gitlin
says this one can fly in Earth's stratosphere.
STEVEN GITLIN: "And it's designed to fly for up to
seven days at a time at about 65,000 feet [19.8
kilometers] altitude and carry a payload that either
helps somebody see what they want to see or relays
communication from one point to another."
AeroViroment says drones also have civilian uses --
for public safety, security, and search and rescue.
And the nano-hummingbird can go places that larger
drones cannot. I'm Steve Ember.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
