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power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:how_energy_efficient_are_human-engineered_flight_designs_relative_to_natural_ones [2022/09/21 07:37]
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power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:how_energy_efficient_are_human-engineered_flight_designs_relative_to_natural_ones [2022/11/02 17:58] (current)
harlanstewart |
| ====== How energy efficient are human-engineered flight designs relative to natural ones? ====== | ====== How energy efficient are human-engineered flight designs relative to natural ones? ====== |
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| // Published 10 December, 2020 // | // Published 10 December, 2020. Updated 21 October, 2022 // |
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| <p>Among two animals and nine machines:</p> | <p>Among two animals and ten machines:</p> |
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| <li><div class="li">In terms of mass⋅distance/energy, the most efficient animal was 2-8x more efficient than the most efficient machine. All entries fell within two orders of magnitude.</div></li> | <li><div class="li">In terms of mass*distance/energy, the most efficient machine was 50x more efficient than the most efficient animal. Entries ranged over four orders of magnitude.</div></li> |
| <li><div class="li">In terms of distance/energy, the most efficient animal was 3,000-20,000x more efficient than the most efficient machine. Both animals were more efficient than all machines. Entries ranged over more than eight orders of magnitude.</div></li> | <li><div class="li">In terms of distance/energy, the most efficient animal was around 200x more efficient than the most efficient machine. Entries ranged over more than eight orders of magnitude.</div></li> |
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| <p>We did not require that the flight of an entry be constantly powered. Solutions that spend some time gliding as well as some time using powered flight were allowed. Both <a data-id="2772" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_wandering_albatross_flight">albatrosses</a> and <a data-id="2776" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_monarch_butterfly_flight">butterflies</a> use air currents to fly further.<span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-1-2715"></span><span class="easy-footnote"><a href="#easy-footnote-bottom-1-2715" title='“Albatrosses and other large seabirds use dynamic soaring to gain sufficient energy from the wind to travel large distances rapidly and with little apparent effort.“</p> <p>Richardson, Philip L., Ewan D. Wakefield, and Richard A. Phillips. “Flight Speed and Performance of the Wandering Albatross with Respect to Wind.” <em>Movement Ecology</em> 6, no. 1 (March 7, 2018): 3. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-018-0121-9">https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-018-0121-9</a>.</p> <p>See page on <a href="https://aiimpacts.org/energy-efficiency-of-monarch-butterfly-flight/" data-type="post" data-id="2776">monarch butterflies</a> for details of their soaring behavior.'><sup>1</sup></a></span> The energy gains from these techniques were not included in the final score, and entries were not penalized for spending a larger fraction of time gliding. It seems likely that paramotor pilots use similar techniques, since paramotors are well suited to gliding (being paragliders with propeller motors strapped to the backs of their pilots). Our energy efficiency estimate for the paramotor came from a record breaking distance flight in which the quantity of available fuel was limited, and so it is likely that some gliding was used to increase the distance traveled as much as possible.</p> | <p>We did not require that the flight of an entry be constantly powered. Solutions that spend some time gliding as well as some time using powered flight were allowed. Both <a data-id="2772" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_wandering_albatross_flight">albatrosses</a> and <a data-id="2776" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_monarch_butterfly_flight">butterflies</a> use air currents to fly further.<span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-1-2715"></span><span class="easy-footnote"><a href="#easy-footnote-bottom-1-2715" title='“Albatrosses and other large seabirds use dynamic soaring to gain sufficient energy from the wind to travel large distances rapidly and with little apparent effort.“</p> <p>Richardson, Philip L., Ewan D. Wakefield, and Richard A. Phillips. “Flight Speed and Performance of the Wandering Albatross with Respect to Wind.” <em>Movement Ecology</em> 6, no. 1 (March 7, 2018): 3. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-018-0121-9">https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-018-0121-9</a>.</p> <p>See page on <a href="https://aiimpacts.org/energy-efficiency-of-monarch-butterfly-flight/" data-type="post" data-id="2776">monarch butterflies</a> for details of their soaring behavior.'><sup>1</sup></a></span> Similarly, the Airbus Zephyr S uses solar power as it flies. The energy gains from these techniques were not included in the final score, and entries were not penalized for spending a larger fraction of time gliding. It seems likely that paramotor pilots use similar techniques, since paramotors are well suited to gliding (being paragliders with propeller motors strapped to the backs of their pilots). Our energy efficiency estimate for the paramotor came from a record breaking distance flight in which the quantity of available fuel was limited, and so it is likely that some gliding was used to increase the distance traveled as much as possible.</p> |
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| | **10/21/2022 Update:** We have added the [[power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_airbus_zephyr_s|Airbus Zephyr S]] to the data on this page, because it stands out as a very efficient plane. |
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| ==== Case studies ==== | ==== Case studies ==== |
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| | * [[power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_airbus_zephyr_s|Airbus Zephyr S]] |
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| <p>Results are available in Table 1 below, and in <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hMyKszvJx4A-A-qlL-frQATnb7Wv9bI51ennFbbi_wU/edit?usp=sharing">this spreadsheet</a>. Figures 1 and 2 below illustrate the equivalent questions of how far each of these animals and machines can fly, given either the same amount of fuel energy, or fuel energy proportional to their body mass.</p> | <p>Results are available in Table 1 below, and in <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1remecdUmQtZyZrJwnKgZLgobwUmlA4__GSg8WimFnUA/edit?usp=sharing">this spreadsheet</a>. Figures 1 and 2 below illustrate the equivalent questions of how far each of these animals and machines can fly, given either the same amount of fuel energy, or fuel energy proportional to their body mass.</p> |
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| <td class="column-9">0.0021</td> | <td class="column-9">0.0021</td> |
| <td class="column-10">0.0021</td> | <td class="column-10">0.0021</td> |
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| | <td class="column-1">Airbus Zephyr S</td> |
| | <td class="column-2">human-engineered</td> |
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| | <td class="column-4">111.7</td> |
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| | <td class="column-9">1490</td> |
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| | [{{:power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:distance_flown_per_kilojoule_proportional_to_weight_2.png|Figure 1: If you give each animal or machine energy proportional to its weight, how far can it fly? Note that the vertical axis is log scaled, so apparently small differences are in fact much larger.}}] |
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| <img alt="" class="wp-image-2813" height="434" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-1024x434.jpg" srcset="https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-1024x434.jpg 1024w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-300x127.jpg 300w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-768x325.jpg 768w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-1536x651.jpg 1536w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-2048x868.jpg 2048w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129727480_757428541515114_4350085674692898023_n-1030x438.jpg 1030w" width="1024"/> | |
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| <strong>Figure 1: If you give each animal or machine energy proportional to its weight, how far can it fly?</strong><br/> | |
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| <p>On mass⋅distance/energy, evolution beats engineers, but they are relatively evenly matched: the albatross (1.4-3.0 kg.m/J) and the Boeing 747-400 (0.39-0.83 kg.m/J) are the best in the natural and engineered classes respectively. Thus the best natural solution we found was roughly 2x-8x more efficient than the human-engineered one.<span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-2-2715"></span><span class="easy-footnote"><a href="#easy-footnote-bottom-2-2715" title="For the best case for engineers we compare the Boeing 747-400’s best score to the Albatross’s worst, and for the best case for evolution we do the opposite. This gives an advantage for evolution by a factor of somewhere between 1.7 and 7.7."><sup>2</sup></a></span> We found several flying machines more efficient on this metric than the monarch butterfly.</p> | <p>On mass⋅distance/energy, engineers beat evolution. The efficiency of Airbus Zephyr S was two orders of magnitude above the Wandering Albatross, the most efficient animal. <span class="easy-footnote-margin-adjust" id="easy-footnote-2-2715"></span><span class="easy-footnote"><a href="#easy-footnote-bottom-2-2715" title="For the best case for engineers we compare the Boeing 747-400’s best score to the Albatross’s worst, and for the best case for evolution we do the opposite. This gives an advantage for evolution by a factor of somewhere between 1.7 and 7.7."><sup>2</sup></a></span> We found several flying machines more efficient on this metric than the monarch butterfly.</p> |
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| | [{{:power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:distance_flown_per_kilojoule.png|Figure 2: How far animals and machines can fly on the same amount of energy. Note that the vertical axis is log scaled, so apparently small differences are in fact much larger.}}] |
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| <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"> | <p>On distance/energy, the natural solutions have a larger advantage. The best natural and engineered solutions respectively are the monarch butterfly (100,000-600,000 m/kJ) and the Airbus Zephyr S (1490 m/kJ), for roughly a 200x advantage to natural evolution.</p> |
| <img alt="" class="wp-image-2814" height="435" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" src="https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-1024x435.jpg" srcset="https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-1024x435.jpg 1024w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-300x128.jpg 300w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-768x326.jpg 768w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-1536x653.jpg 1536w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-2048x870.jpg 2048w, https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/129734907_191799035908993_4248841669315097267_n-1030x438.jpg 1030w" width="1024"/> | |
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| <strong>Figure 2: How far animals and machines can fly on the same amount of energy. Note that the vertical axis is log scaled, unlike that of Figure 1, so smaller looking differences are in fact much larger: over eight orders of magnitude (vs less than two in Figure 1).</strong><br/> | |
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| <p>On distance/energy, the natural solutions have a much larger advantage. Both are better than all man-made solutions we considered. The best natural and engineered solutions respectively are the monarch butterfly (100,000-600,000 m/kJ) and the Spirit of Butts’ Farm (32 m/kJ), for roughly a 3,000x to 20,000x advantage to natural evolution.</p> | |
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| <p>We take this as weak evidence about the best possible distance/energy and distance.mass/energy measures achievable by human engineers or natural evolution. One reason for this is that this is a small set of examples. Another is that none of these animals or machines were optimized purely for either of these flight metrics—they all had other constraints or more complex goals. For instance, the <a data-id="2765" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_paramotors">paramotor</a> was competing for a record in which a paramotor had to be used, specifically. For the longest human flight, the flying machine had to be capable of carrying a human. The albatross’ body has many functions. Thus it seems plausible that either engineers or natural evolution could reach solutions far better on our metrics than those recorded here if they were directly aiming for those metrics.</p> | <p>We take this as weak evidence about the best possible distance/energy and distance*mass/energy measures achievable by human engineers or natural evolution. One reason for this is that this is a small set of examples. Another is that none of these animals or machines were optimized purely for either of these flight metrics—they all had other constraints or more complex goals. For instance, the <a data-id="2765" data-type="post" href="/doku.php?id=power_of_evolution:evolution_engineering_comparison:energy_efficiency_of_paramotors">paramotor</a> was competing for a record in which a paramotor had to be used, specifically. For the longest human flight, the flying machine had to be capable of carrying a human. The albatross’ body has many functions. Thus it seems plausible that either engineers or natural evolution could reach solutions far better on our metrics than those recorded here if they were directly aiming for those metrics.</p> |
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| <p>The measurements for distance.mass/energy covered a much narrower band than those for distance/energy: a factor of under two orders of magnitude versus around eight. Comparing best scores between evolution and engineering, the gap is also much smaller, as noted above (a factor of less than one order of magnitude versus three orders of magnitude). This seems like some evidence that that band of performance is natural for some reason, and so that more pointed efforts to do better on these metrics would not readily lead to much higher performance.</p> | |
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