First flight: This tiny robot weighs just 60 milligrams and has a wingspan of three centimeters. It’s the first robot to achieve liftoff that’s modeled on a fly and built on such a small scale.
Robert Wood
Researchers have created a robotic fly for covert surveillance.
A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.
"Nature makes the world's best fliers," says Robert Wood, leader of Harvard's robotic-fly project and a professor at the university's school of engineering and applied sciences.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding Wood's research in the hope that it will lead to stealth surveillance robots for the battlefield and urban environments. The robot's small size and fly-like appearance are critical to such missions. "You probably wouldn't notice a fly in the room, but you certainly would notice a hawk," Wood says.
Recreating a fly's efficient movements in a robot roughly the size of the real insect was difficult, however, because existing manufacturing processes couldn't be used to make the sturdy, lightweight parts required. The motors, bearings, and joints typically used for large-scale robots wouldn't work for something the size of a fly. "Simply scaling down existing macro-scale techniques will not come close to the performance that we need," Wood says.
Some extremely small parts can be made using the processes for creating microelectromechanical systems. But such processes require a lot of time and money. Wood and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, needed a cheap, rapid fabrication process so they could easily produce different iterations of their designs.
Ultimately, the team developed its own fabrication process. Using laser micromachining, researchers cut thin sheets of carbon fiber into two-dimensional patterns that are accurate to a couple of micrometers. Sheets of polymer are cut using the same process. By carefully arranging the sheets of carbon fiber and polymer, the researchers are able to create functional parts.
For example, to create a flexure joint, the researchers arrange two tiny pieces of carbon composite and leave a gap in between. They then add a sheet of polymer perpendicularly across the two carbon pieces, like a tabletop on two short legs. Two new pieces of carbon fiber are placed at either end of the polymer, as a final top layer. Once all the pieces are cured together, the resulting part resembles the letter H: the center is flexible but the sides are rigid.
By fitting many little carbon-polymer pieces together, the researchers are able to create rather complicated parts that can bend and rotate precisely as required. To make parts that will move in response to electrical signals, the researchers incorporate electroactive polymers, which change shape when exposed to voltage. The entire fabrication process will be outlined in a paper appearing in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Mechanical Design.
Michel Maharbiz's novel interfaces between machines and living systems could give rise to a new generation of cyborg devices.
The insect's flight path can be wirelessly controlled via a neural implant.
Researchers are testing whether robotic dragonflies could be agile and elusive fliers.
60 grams?
I don't think so - looks like the weight is definitely less than 6 grams... Could it be as little as 60 mg ?
Uli
use microwaves as power source. Flybots frozen
into cluster of ice cubes then dropped from
UAV. When ice melts Flybots available to
be activated by an invisible collimnated beam of microwaves that can power as well as carry pulse code mission instructions.
I fully agree with you guys...being a technical man myself i do understand how difficult it can be rubbing head when we don't know what to do.
Anyone interested in discussing such stuffs are welcome at: www.egzone.info
or simply visit my blog and open a new thread where we do have many domain experts in their respective fields at: www.egzone.info/blog
I have been arguing, for years, to anyone who will stay still long enough to listen, that literal "fly on the wall" technology is what we need to solve a slew of problems like what's really happening in Darfur or Zimbabwe, who is doing what to whom in Iraq or Guantanomo, are the Iranians/Israelis/North Koreans really building nuclear weapons, etc etc. This development marks a major milestone along that route.
There are, of course, major technological obstacles still ahead. The "flies" will be utterly useless, for example, unless they can gather their energy from the environment (rather than carry powerpacks) and transmit the data they capture, in real time, a reasonable distance (at least a few kilometres so that high flying drones could harvest the signals). I'm guessing the transmission problem will eventually be solved using "swarm" technology to amplify the tiny output of individual flies into a cellphone scale signal which can reach the required distances.
But by far the biggest issue which needs to be resolved at this early stage - while we can still affect the outcome - is "who will have access to and control of this technology?"
As the earlier responses suggest, if we maintain our current passive stupidity, we will let Big Brother be the beneficiary and allow "him" to complete his increasing dominance of our lives, with the consequent erosion of liberty and privacy that will inevitably entail.
Or we can insist that this becomes democratically controlled technology which can form a major component of our defences against both Tyranny and Terrorism - as I am trying to outline here: http://www.fullmoon.nu/book/side_issues/IdentityCards.htm
Flies are horribly annoying. We are going to have to come up with a better fly trap now.
Imagine what an insect that eats and prematurely detonates explosives could do to terrorism. Imagine more.
See:
http://www.comw.org/rma/fulltext/overview.html
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/00autumn/metz.htm
The Next Twist of the RMA by Steven Metz
http://www.comw.org/rma/fulltext/overview.html
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs2000/conflict/conflict.pdf
ARMED CONFLICT IN THE 21st CENTURY: THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION AND POST-MODERN WARFARE by Steven Metz April 2000
Like all new technology, this is a double edged sword that could be used by and against anyone. Imagine what securing the borders would do. The War Against Terrorism is a farce. Terrorism is not an entity or group that war can be waged against, and our borders would be more and not less secure if our government was serious about it. We are losing our freedom and this country is being looted as we speak. Unless we wake up soon, all is lost.
Seems to me these would be the ultimate in fly fishing -- nothing could fool the fish more than a "fly" that can really fly!
That means your house people.
Orwellian slip:
When you say one thing but mean your government.
From the article: "Some extremely small parts can be made using the processes for creating microelectromechanical systems. But such processes require a lot of time and money."
The above statement is a bit subjective, perhaps even taken out of context. But taking it at face value, if MEMS fabrication techniques would have been used, what would have been the likely results?
Also, the article notes that the research team ultimately chose laser machining as the basis for its fabrication process. It should be noted that laser machining, especially centered on using ultrafast laser pulses, is a micromachining technique usually associated with MEMS fabrication.
I say this because a company I'm affiliated with, Zytech Solar, is using related techniques for the manufacturing of some solar collectors (panels), i.e., those with a focus on performance characteristics rather than cost (their European plants focus on quality differentiation; their plants in China focus on cost leadership): Yep, MEMS comes to the solar sector.
- David Scott Lewis
OK, don't get me wrong: this research is really cool. But a great fly robot was invented long ago. It has long range, fast speed, maneuverability, optical and olfactory sensors, and artificial intelligence, and it can refuel from the environment. Plus, it is incredibly cheap to produce, since it self-reproduces. It's called a fly.
Rather than focusing on building bio-inspired robots, I think we should be focusing on machine-to-organism interfaces. We must break out of the "all-electronics" box. We don't need robotic vehicles. We already HAVE robotic vehicles, of all sizes, for all kinds of terrain and payload -- animals. What we lack are CONTROL SYSTEMS for these vehicles, to make them go where we want.
> OK, don't get me wrong: this research is really
> cool. But a great fly robot was invented
> long ago. It has long range, fast speed,
> maneuverability, optical and olfactory sensors,
> and artificial intelligence, and it can refuel
> from the environment. Plus, it is incredibly
> cheap to produce, since it self-reproduces.
> It's called a fly.
> Rather than focusing on building bio-inspired
> robots, I think we should be focusing on
> machine-to-organism interfaces.
> [...] we lack [...] CONTROL SYSTEMS for these
> vehicles, to make them go where we want.
Indeed, excellent point for an alternative approach! Focuses on areas where our skills are stronger and let other entities (flies, birds) on the other side of the interface do the same.
Some steps are already being done unintentional, without aiming just this type of applications. There are animals that enjoy performing long flights (e.g. nightingales) for the benefit of humans (8 hours in wind tunnel – Lund University, Sweden). Some of them have rather good learning skills too.
Another issue (not only control system): how bringing back visual/audio information in real time from the "sensors"?
By the way, some primitive forms of control-systems (human-to-organism interfaces) exist too: horse and rider, by example.
Anyway, it will be exiting to follow this project too.
I agree dmm! We have taken advantage of what the horse gives us, passenger pidgeons, the dolphin, dogs, and many other non-published alliances with natural creatures. Seeing the admission that the little "fly is tethered" said it all. Natural flies don't need a tether to stabilize their flight because they have a natural gyroscope built into their body - called halters. One is located behind each wing, and it they have a balancing function for each wing beat. For each motion of the wing, the halters move in an equal and opposite direction of motion to counter the inertial and driving forces of the wing! Quite amazing what nature has done! Also, we still have not figured out how to absorb enough energy from the nautral environment to drive our mini-machines. The fly does that already by tanking up with sugars and moisture from flowers!
Nice invention i think this is going to bring new era in miltary applications also but what i want to say is whether is this is capable to take weight and far it can fly with out any problem
You need to create a docking-hive first. Perhaps round and sticky on the outside...
Help rid the world of stupid speeding tickets.
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Gaetano Marano
246 Comments
"FIRST STEP" TOWARDS A "MINORITY REPORT" FUTURE?
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so, the Minority Report's small disks surveillance microrobots will be no longer a sci-fi stuff...
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brunascle
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Re: "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS A "MINORITY REPORT" FUTURE?
"do anyone knows how hyperlink the URLs posted in comments?"
you cant.
:)
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