Important Innovations

Novel, Tiny Robot Has Big Applications for Drones DelFly Robot - Image Courtesy of Delft University New Robot Mimics Insect Flight Researchers at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands have developed a novel flying robot that mimics the flight control and dynamics of insects.  Its flying wings beat 17 times per second.  And it generates enough force to stay airborne and controls the flight by slight changes in wing motion. DelFly Nimble The engineers have named it DelFly Nimble. The tiny robot is autonomous.  It can hover on the spot,  do 360० flips and fly any direction with agility like an insect.  Right now it has top speeds of 15.5 mph and excellent power efficiency with a flight range of 1 km on a fully charged battery. Important Applications DelFly Nimble has exceptional flight qualities which open up new drone applications.  Scientists say it's also exceptionally well suited to advance biological and engineering research into insects and their fli

Tiny, Laser Powered and Wireless Flier University of Washington mechanical engineers have cracked the code on tiny, flying robots.  Their creation RoboFly is the first tiny robot to fly free, untethered to a power source.  It's remarkable tech so tiny it can sit on your finger and then takeoff powered by laser light. Teaching RoboFly to Smell The University of Washington team has a goal and mission for RoboFly.  It's tiny and highly maneuverable.  They want to teach it to smell.  So that it can fly into crevices and detect, for instance, the smell of gas.  In effect, it's a tiny search robot that initially through smell can serve as an early warning system that there's a gas leak. Tech on the Fly This flying robot is just like its insect inspiration.  It has delicate, transparent wings.  It contains a photovoltaic cell that converts laser light into electric power that lets it fly.  A microcontroller in an onboard circuit acts as a brain.  It sends pulses of v