#robofly

Engineers at the University of Washington have created the first robotic insect with its own brain, allowing it to take its first independent flaps without being tethered like conventional robotic insects.

Excerpt:

This is one flying insect you don't want to swat. It doesn't bite, sting or spread disease. In fact, someday it could be a life- and climate-saver. In time, it could even be used to survey crops, detect wildfires, poke around in disaster rubble searching for survivors and sniff out gas leaks, especially global warming-fueling methane, a powerful greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Introducing … RoboFly!

It's the first robotic flying insect that lifts off without being tethered to a power source on the ground, unlike other flying robotics. It weighs just a bit more than a toothpick and takes off using tiny beating wings—not propellers, as drones do—driven by a laser beam. A minuscule onboard circuit turns the laser energy into electricity, which causes its wings to flap.

O primeiro robô voador sem fio é parecido com uma mosca

Como um guarda-chuva com um buraco, você não pode fazer muito com robôs insetos voadores quando se pensa em fontes de energia.

Pequenos robôs aerotransportados podem se esgueirar para lugares de difícil acesso que drones maiores não conseguem, cumprindo alguns dos mesmos objetivos, como vigilância e detecção de vestígios de substâncias químicas como o metano no ar. Mas eles não podem fazer isso…

Watch a laser-powered RoboFly flap its tiny wings

Making something fly involves a lot of tradeoffs. Bigger stuff can hold more fuel or batteries, but too big and the lift required is too much. Small stuff takes less lift to fly but might not hold a battery with enough energy to do so. Insect-size drones have had that problem in the past — but now this RoboFly is taking its first flaps into the air… all thanks to the power of lasers.

We’ve seen…

Tiny Robo-Fly Uses Micro Energy to Buzz