RoboSwift is a robotic surveillance bird with revolutionary 'morphing wings'.

Dutch researchers have built a swift lookalike fitted with tiny cameras which they hope will be used as surveillance and crowd control cameras of the future without anyone noticing.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No it's RoboSwift - a surveillance camera that looks like a life-size bird.

Created by Delft University's Technology department in the Netherlands, the revolutionary contraption can move its wings backwards and reduce the surface area with what the inventors call 'morphing'.

(SOUDNBITE)(English), ABISHEK SAHAI, STUDENT, SAYING:

"There are some people in Florida who are working also on morphing, but they are more in twisting of the wings like a seagull and different birds, but morphing that we use, the sweep-back with area reduction, that is actually unique, nowhere else in the world it's been done."

The morphing technique is based on a swift's wings, and developed with the Experimental Zoology department of Wageningen University.

During its lifetime, a common swift flies the equivalent of five times the distance to the Moon and back.

But the RoboSwift lacks some of a real bird's intuition.

(SOUNDBITE)(English), JAN WOUTER KRUYT, STUDENT, SAYING:

"It flew into the tree, quite uncontrollable and that's just beyond its maximum strength, so to say, so we'll rebuild it and make sure we have a new roboswift to fly in India."

The team are preparing to travel to Agra in India to take part in the American-Asiatic Micro Air Vehicle Competition.

The US army will be there scouting clever innovations in the field of surveillance.

(SOUNDBITE)(English), DAVID LENTINK, TEAM TUTOR, SAYING:

"I definitively think in a few years these planes will be around and will be used for observation, because there is such a big demand in the market, and I am not only talking about military being interested, that's not our main goal, we are interested in civil applications for the police for example."

And this is not just wishful thinking.

The project is already being sponsored by the Dutch police force.

Stefanie McIntyre, Reuters