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Scientists in the US have created a robot the size of
a fly that is able to perform the agile manoeuvres of the ubiquitous
insects.
This "robo-fly", built from carbon fibre, weighs a fraction of a gram
and has super-fast electronic "muscles" to power its wings.
Its Harvard University developers say tiny robots like theirs may
eventually be used in rescue operations.
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It could, for example, navigate through tiny spaces in collapsed
buildings.
The development is reported in the journal Science.
Dr Kevin Ma from Harvard University and his team, led by Dr Robert Wood,
say they have made the world's smallest flying robot.
It also has the fly-like agility that allows the insects to evade even
the swiftest of human efforts to swat them.
This comes largely from very precise wing movements.
By constantly adjusting the effect of lift and thrust acting on its body
at an incredibly high speed, the insect's (and the robot's) wings enable
it to hover, or to perform sudden evasive manoeuvres.
And just like a real fly, the robot's thin, flexible wings beat
approximately 120 times every second.
The researchers achieved this wing speed with special substance called
piezoelectric material, which contracts every time a voltage is applied
to it.
By very rapidly switching the voltage on and off, the scientists were
able to make this material behave like just like the tiny muscles that
makes a fly's wings beat so fast.
"We get it to contract and relax, like biological muscle," said Dr Ma.
The main goal of this research was to understand how insect flight
works, rather than to build a useful robot.
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He added though that there could be many uses for such a diminutive
flying vehicle.
"We could envision these robots being used for search-and-rescue
operations to search for human survivors under collapsed buildings or
[in] other hazardous environments," he said.
"They [could] be used for environmental monitoring, to be dispersed into
a habitat to sense trace chemicals or other factors.
Dr Ma even suggested that the robots could behave like many real insects
and assist with the pollination of crops, "to function as the
now-struggling honeybee populations do in supporting agriculture around
the world".
The current model of robo-fly is tethered to a small, off-board power
source but Dr Ma says the next step will be to miniaturise the other
bits of technology that will be needed to create a "fully wireless
flying robot".
"It will be a few more years before full integration is possible," he
said.
"Until then, this research project continues to be very captivating work
because of its similarity to natural insects. It is a demonstration of
how far human engineering ingenuity has reached, to be mimicking natural
systems."
Dr Jon Dyhr, a biologist from the University of Washington who also
studies insect flight, said these flying robots were "impressive feats
of engineering".
"The physics of flight at such small scales is relatively poorly
understood which makes designing small flying systems very difficult,"
he told BBC News, adding that biological systems provided "critical
insights into designing our own artificial flyers". |