
Insect-inspired robot can fly a kilometer on a charge with flappy wings - confiscate
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/this-insect-inspired-robot-can-fly-a-kilometer-on-a-charge-with-its-flappy-wings/
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kristianp
Matěj Karásek, Florian T. Muijres, Christophe De Wagter, Bart D.W. Remes,
Guido C.H.E. de Croon: A tailless aerial robotic flapper reveals that flies
use torque coupling in rapid banked turns. Science, Vol 361, Iss 6407, 2018.
DOI: 10.1126/science.aat0350

[https://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aat0350](https://sci-
hub.tw/10.1126/science.aat0350)

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isoprophlex
Thanks for the direct link!

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elsewhen
This video shows more of the DelFly Nimble's flight maneuvers:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhu-
FePBC0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhu-FePBC0)

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tomcam
I lost $1,200 sponsoring something like this on Indiegogo. It failed and
nothing got shipped to us backers. Sadly, they didn't open source any of their
work. [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-
aer...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/robot-dragonfly-micro-aerial-
vehicle#/)

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netgusto
Sorry to hear that. Is the prototype demonstrated in their video a fake? Or
something that could not be mass produced?

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peterwwillis
I'm imagining a thousand of these released in a city. They could spread out
through every single street and map an entire city in a matter of minutes. Do
it at dusk and you'd never even know it was happening, you'd just think bats
were out feeding.

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sgnelson
Considering the size of these, and their incredibly light weight design,
that's probably a bit unlikely. With current technology, they are not capable
of carrying much of a payload.

It's great research, and very cool design (both mechanically, as well as the
driving software), but frankly, these types of flying mechanisms just don't
scale well and don't have much use. (But please don't take that of a criticism
of their research, I think what they've done is awesome and I really look
forward to see what they do next.)

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jacquesm
We already know they scale quite well, your average duck goes 100 mph and will
fly incredible distances on a relatively small load of fuel. It's just that we
haven't been able to re-engineer them to the point that we can achieve that
kind of efficiency, but we have solid proof it is possible.

Scaling flapping wing devices up is much easier than making them this small.

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schoen
> your average duck goes 100 mph

Apparently this was a record-setting duck; we wouldn't want to say "your
average human goes 23 mph", even though Usain Bolt has done so.

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jacquesm
Ok, we'll swap the Duck with a Peregrine Falcon.

Please take the 100 mph duck with an appropriate amount of salt (vegetarians,
feel free to substitute (the duck, not the salt) with an equal amount of
Tofu), and instead read it as 'birds are very fast'.

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supermatt
That would be a dive, not flying. Humans can reach great speeds while falling
too! :)

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stewbrew
Can we have one of these man-sized with straps so I can put it on my back,
please?

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kwhitefoot
It looks like quite a small bill of materials and standard servos. It would be
interesting to see a proper set of plans for making one. Perhaps someone in
Shenzhen could start selling kits on Ebay.

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rasz
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Remote-control-dragoN-
birds-...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Remote-control-dragoN-birds-flying-
toy/648412762.html)

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kwhitefoot
Thanks, that looks very interesting.

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foota
I think things like this show that very light weight solar panels will enable
a huge variety of drone applications that aren't feasible now due to
limitations of recharging.

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kuprel
Could solar cells for wings provide enough power?

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tachyonbeam
These wings are obviously very thin, light and flexible. The battery is also a
lithium-polymer one, which can deliver a lot of power for a short duration
(eg: 20 watts for 5 minutes). With current tech, it wouldn't be possible for
this robot. I also don't think it would be possible for this robot to generate
enough power to keep flying continuously, even if you had 100% efficient
ultra-light solar cells.

All of that being said, there are solar-powered drones with large static wings
out there, typically based on glider designs. We can also imagine a design
where a drone lands and recharges using solar power for ten minutes, and then
flies for a short one-minute trip. With the fly-inspired design in this video,
it could probably take off vertically.

