This Tiny Robot Is Part Bee, Part Crane Fly—and It Finally Has Solid Legs

Imagine that small automated bees wander around the wildflower fields, which helps real bees to perform their decisive duties in the future. It is a vision of Harvard Laboratory Micropott for years. barrier? Until recently, the only landing that Harvard Robobi mastered was the landing of the collision.

The Harvard University researchers now armed the small Robobe with four long and graceful landfills inspired by the legs of the crane fly. (The lever flies are these nightmare insects, but they are not harmful to flying spiders and people who make a mistake in identifying giant mosquitoes). As it was detailed in a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of Science Robotics, the soft landing makes Robobees a single step from practical applications that look today outside the science fiction movie, such as environmental monitoring, disaster monitoring, artificial pollution, or even manipulating microorganisms.

“Previously, if we go to land, we will extinguish the car over the ground a little and download it, and we pray to land straight and safely,” explained by Christian Chan, a PhD student at Harvard University of Engineering, Applied Sciences and the co -author of the study, in a statement to Harvard.

Under the leadership of Robert Wood, Professor of Harvard Engineering for Applied Sciences and Applied Sciences, Chan and his colleagues search for an inspiration for designing a new drop inside the comparative zoology museum database at the university. In the end, they chose the leverage fly, preparing Robobi with four long articulated legs for the most softened landing. The update also guarantees an improved control unit (robot brain) to disintegrate a small robot landing approach. This mixture is now producing a “nice decrease”, as shown in the statement.

Previous versions of Robobe have struggled for controlling landing because air swirls resulting from their raised wings created instability near Earth. It is a problem called appropriately the “earthly effect” faced by helicopters as well. Except that it is likely to be more challenging for Robobe with a weight of 0.004 ounces (1/10 grams), and its wings are only 1.2 inches (3 centimeters).

“The successful landing of any flight vehicle depends on speed reduction as the surface approaches before influence and the energy is rapidly dispelling after influence,” explained by Nak Seong Patrick Hyun, a former post -doctoral colleague at Harvard University and an assistant professor now at the Bordeaux University College for Electricity and Computer. “Even with the presence of small panels from the suite from Robobe, the ground effect is not qualified when flying near the surface, and things can get worse after the effect while wearing it and collapses.” Hyun has led Robobe landing tests on both solid surfaces and paper, just like the real insect.

The legs of the crane fly and the updated control unit also protect the fragile phenomenon of Robobi – the equivalent of a small robot for the muscles of the insect. The researchers explained in the study: “The initial defects of the applicants of strained carpets are their fragility and a decrease in the stiffness of the fracture.” “Compatible legs help protect sensitive photovoltaic outlets from collision fractures during the fall of the crash.”

The team aims forward, the team aims to give Robobe sensor, power, and control of the autonomy-the “three-sided sacred cup” that would apparently bring its practical applications more than reality.