The wing can deform itself to adapt to different situations.
NASA and MIT scientists have developed a radical new type of airplane wing, which is made up of thousands of tiny identical subunits.
The small identical components or subunits form a lattice structure that is then covered in a thin polymer material. The resulting wing is thus mostly composed of empty space, while still being stiff and low density. The lattice, for example, has the same stiffness as rubber but only around one-thousandth of the density.
The current version of the design measures around 16 feet in length and was built by hand. However, the researchers say that the wing could easily be assembled by a team of autonomous robots, with each part taking just 17 seconds to produce via injection molding. "You can make any geometry you want," Jenett said."The fact that most aircraft are the same shape is because of expense. It's not always the most efficient shape."
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