FLAVIIR's researchers have come up with a range of designs for these fluidic controls.

ECONOMIST: How to fly without ailerons

The ailerons, fitted as a back-up, in case the fluidic controls did not perform as hoped, are thus redundant.

ECONOMIST: How to fly without ailerons

But by copying the brittlestar's fluidic system, she has been able to make biomimetic lens arrays with the same flexibility.

ECONOMIST: REPORTS

Instead of moving a physical surface, fluidic controls divert the airflow over a wing by blowing compressed air out of narrow slots.

ECONOMIST: How to fly without ailerons

HCD-14 Genesis conveys a fluidic-precision, liquid-metal design language.

ENGADGET: Hyundai unveils HCD-14 Genesis concept: suicide doors, gesture and eye controls

The Demon system's success in controlling roll, one of the three axes of movement of a body in free space, is also leading engineers to wonder if the other two axes, pitch and yaw, might similarly be transferred to fluidic systems from, respectively, the elevator flaps on the tailplane and the rudder on the tail.

ECONOMIST: How to fly without ailerons