Humanoids? Been there, done that. Now, engineers are trying to create robots that look like insects.
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created the world’s smallest wireless flying robot, which can hover, change trajectory, and hit small targets.
The device is less than one centimeter in diameter and weighs 21 milligrams, which makes it the world’s smallest wireless robot that can fly.
UC Berkeley professor and the senior author of the paper on the robot, Liwei Lin, shared that the inspiration for this type of device came from bees and their ability to navigate, hover, and pollinate.
To fly, a robot has to be equipped with a battery and electronics that would allow it to control the flight. However, it’s hard to include these elements into a what is supposed to be a light and small device.
This is why Lin and the UC Berkeley team used an external magnetic field to enable them to fly and navigate the robot.
The device, which looks like a propeller, includes two small magnets. Because of the magnetic field, the magnets are attracted and repelled, allowing the propeller to spin and raise the robot from the ground. The way the robot flies can be controlled by adjusting the magnetic field’s strength.
The idea behind creating a small flying robot is to be able to reach and explore small spaces, explained the study’s co-author Fanping Sui.
For now the robot can only fly “passive flight,” meaning that while it can follow a flight path, the device can be influenced by environmental factors, such as strong wind, reports UC Berkeley News.
It’s expected that in the future, the robot could be controlled actively, allowing a user to navigate the position of the robot in real time.
The bumblebee-inspired robot isn’t the only robot created by UC Berkeley engineers. Lin’s team also invented “cockroach” robot that can sprint across the floor and can live even after being stepped on by a human.
One of the study’s co-authors, Wei Yue, now is also working on a robot that can swim. The researcher shared that he’s been working on robot devices that can also crawl, roll, and spin. He explained that in the future, these small-scale robots could be used in minimally invasive surgeries.
Before the bee-inspired robot, the smallest robot that could fly measured 2.8 centimetres in diameter.
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