Even robotic planes need a runway to take off and land, but this limits the areas that they can work in. Now, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been studying how birds land to try and develop planes that can land in confined spaces or in mountainous areas.

The problem is that to stop quickly, a bird needs to tilt its wings back quite far. For a plane, this is dangerous because the airflow over the wings becomes hard to predict and can cause the aircraft to stall.

The scientists have got around this by using computer programs to correct errors in a model plane’s flight as it comes in to land.

Watch the video from MIT below to see their model land.

Image by Jason Dorfman/CSAIL