World's smallest drone Robo-fly weighs less than a gram
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From large military unmanned aircraft to cheap and cheerful quadcopters, drones are becoming increasingly diverse.
Now, a robot the size of a fly is set to become the world's smallest.
The robo-fly has a carbon fibre body weighing just 106mg - a fraction of a gram - and a pair of flapping wings powered by electronic 'muscles.'
The robo-fly (pictured) is the smallest drone in the world and has a carbon fibre body weighing just 106mg - a fraction of a gram - and a pair of flapping wings powered by electronic muscles
THE TAKE OFF OF THE TINY DRONE
The Robo-fly has a carbon fibre body weighing just 106mg - a fraction of a gram - and a pair of flapping wings powered by electronic 'muscles.'
It is powered and controlled through a lightweight tether wire and can perform the agile manoeuvres of the insects.
It finds its balance in the air thanks to a pyramid shaped light sensor on top of the 'head' - the first time this has been achieved in a machine so small.
Past models have required external cameras to perform corrective manoeuvres.
Harvard University scientists were inspired by biology, because insects achieve the feat relying just on their 'onboard' senses.
They based their model on simple light sensitive eyes called ocelli found in bees, flies and other insects which are similar in design to our's due to their single lens.
While it may be small, it could prove mighty useful as it is designed to be used in search and rescue operations, because it can squeeze through tiny spaces in collapsed rubble.
The diminutive drone could also be used to monitor environmental conditions and even pollinate crops in the future.
It is powered and controlled using a lightweight tether wire and can perform agile manoeuvres like insects.
The drone finds its balance in the air thanks to a pyramid-shaped light sensor on top of its 'head' and it is the first time the technology has been used in a machine so small.
Past models have required external cameras to perform corrective manoeuvres.
The Harvard University scientists behind the drone were inspired by insects, which keep their balance by solely relying just on their 'on-board' senses.
They based their drone on light-sensitive eyes called ocelli found in bees, flies and other insects which have a single lens like ours.
The three ocelli, which is Latin for 'little eyes', are on the top of the head and separate from the insects' compound eyes at the side.
It is powered and controlled using a lightweight tether wire and can perform agile manoeuvres like insects.
They can see colour and are used for navigation and maintaining stability in flight.
In the drone, the ocelli design consists of four phototransistors soldered to a custom built circuit board that is folded into a pyramid, according to the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
The scientists attached their mechanical ocelli to the drone for balance, which in an experiment, remained upright for a 0.3 second climbing phase, which equates to 40 wing stokes.
'In this work, we showed how an ocelli inspired vision sensor can be used to stabilise the upright orientation of a fly sized flying robot, Dr Sawyer said.
Researchers based their drone on light-sensitive eyes called ocelli found in bees, flies and other insects which have a single lens like ours. The three ocelli, which is Latin for 'little eyes', are on the top of the head and separate from the insects' compound eyes at the side
'Although a number of sensors have been proposed that could, in principle, be integrated into such a vehicle, few have been operated on a fly sized robot, and none have previously performed in free flight. Hence, these results constitute the first demonstration of on-board sensors in free flight at this scale.'
In a few years it is hoped that the robo-fly will be fully wireless, enabling it one day to even be used to pollinate crops, which is especially important as honeybee populations are struggling around the world.
In the meantime, Dr Fuller and colleagues hope to use their contraption to learn more about how insects fly.
'Flying robots on the scale of and inspired by flies may provide insights into the mechanisms used by their biological counterparts,' he said.
Dr Fuller and colleagues hope to use their contraption to learn more about how insects fly (pictured). 'Flying robots on the scale of and inspired by flies may provide insights into the mechanisms used by their biological counterparts,' he said
'These animals' flight apparatus' have evolved for millions of years to find robust and high performance solutions that exceed the capabilities of current robotic vehicles.
He explained that Dipteran flies are incredibly agile and can turn in a millisecond during pursuit or while landing upside down on a ceiling.
'These feats are performed using the resources of a relatively small nervous system. It is not well understood how they do this, from the unsteady aerodynamics of their wings interacting with the surrounding fluid to the sensorimotor transductions in their brain.
'An effort to reverse engineer their flight apparatus using a robot with similar characteristics could provide insights that would be difficult to obtain using other methods such as fluid mechanics models or experimentally probing animal behaviour.
'The result will be a better understanding of how insects have achieved their superlative capabilities that can be applied towards improved robotic systems.'
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