Overview

• The Nature study validates the design through simulations, wind-tunnel work, lab drops and outdoor drone tests.
• An outdoor demo used a 0.5 m disk to deliver a 1 kg water bottle from 60 m, reaching about 14 m/s versus roughly 34 m/s without a chute.
• The parachute realigns regardless of release orientation and avoids the gliding drift conventional canopies use for stability.
• Fabrication is simple and inexpensive via laser cutting or die-cutting from plastic, paper or cardboard, with a single suspension line.
• Because the porous design yields less drag per area, human-scale use is impractical (order-of-magnitude radius ~100 m), so current efforts target small deliveries and explore biodegradable materials and cut patterns that add rotation or glide.