Call them the RoboBats. In a recent article in Science, Harvard roboticists demonstrate that their flying microrobots, nicknamed the RoboBees, can now perch during flight to save energy -- like bats, birds or butterflies.
"Many applications for small drones require them to stay in the air for extended periods," said Moritz Graule, first author of the paper who conducted this research as a student at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. "Unfortunately, smaller drones run out of energy quickly. We want to keep them aloft longer without requiring too much additional energy."
[...] "A lot of different animals use perching to conserve energy," said Kevin Ma, a post-doc at SEAS and the Wyss Institute and coauthor. "But the methods they use to perch, like sticky adhesives or latching with talons, are inappropriate for a paperclip-size microrobot, as they either require intricate systems with moving parts or high forces for detachment."
Instead, the team turned to electrostatic adhesion -- the same basic science that causes a static-charged sock to cling to a pants leg or a balloon to stick to a wall.
Please, please design them to power themselves by consuming mosquitoes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday May 20 2016, @09:14PM
Does it work on tile surfaces under 100% -condensing- humidity? A friend would like to know.
Another friend is asking why we're working so hard at forging our own panopticon.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 20 2016, @09:55PM
It's a living!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2016, @10:01PM
Flys have more meat on them, and would probably provide greater fuel.
These people think small though. The "paper clip" drones are really fighters. Just like you don't normally see a TIE fighter in deep space without a Star Destroyer on hand, you don't see a PC drone without it's aircraft carrier. We design that to stay aloft with helium to help preserve its power cells for refueling the drones. If we can have drones deliver flies to be converted into fuel mid-air, then all the better.
With something like this we may, just may, even push back the squirrels and their plans.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 21 2016, @05:06AM
Hasn't dust been clinging to all manmade surfaces ever since we started making stuff?