Robotic Fly

Small winged insects are notorious for annoying people.. those little buzz things swooping in and out. However, the research of Robert Wood, assistant professor of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard University, may cause you to look twice at your next fly.

Dr. Wood is on his way to perfecting a miniature robot whose looks are inspired from nature. The eventual applications of this Robotic fly may include locating survivors trapped in mines and spying in wartime. Designing an automated Robotic fly implied having the ability to make lightweight, miniature working parts. His research group developed and fabricated a laser carving system that could meticulously cut, shape, and bend sheets of carbon fiber and polymer—both strong but lightweight materials—into the necessary micro parts.

This Robotic Fly weights around 60 milligrams or the weight of a few grains of rice and has a wingspan of 3 centimeters. For powering up the robotic fly, Woods team is using a layered composite that bends when electricity is applied, thereby powering a micro-scale gearbox hooked up to the wings producing more than 400 watts/kilogram.

Success meant that Wood could finally turn to those questions that weren’t worth asking until the fly took off: Is the shape of a fly’s wings (a less-than-optimal design which Wood improved on in his robotic version) a biological limitation, or does it somehow aid the fly’s aerodynamics? Does a four-winged insect offer a design improvement? Even questions of evolutionary biology come into play: Why did all the four-winged arthropod flyers of the late Carboniferous period evolve to have two wings?

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