
Unleashed, Robo-Insect Takes Flight - mhb
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/science/robot-insect-flight-engineering.html
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carapace
Paper: "Untethered flight of an insect-sized flapping-wing microscale aerial
vehicle"

> Heavier-than-air flight at any scale is energetically expensive. This is
> greatly exacerbated at small scales and has so far presented an
> insurmountable obstacle for untethered flight in insect-sized (mass less
> than 500 milligrams and wingspan less than 5 centimetres) robots. These
> vehicles1,2,3,4 thus need to fly tethered to an offboard power supply and
> signal generator owing to the challenges associated with integrating onboard
> electronics within a limited payload capacity. Here we address these
> challenges to demonstrate sustained untethered flight of an insect-sized
> flapping-wing microscale aerial vehicle. The 90-milligram vehicle uses four
> wings driven by two alumina-reinforced piezoelectric actuators to increase
> aerodynamic efficiency (by up to 29 per cent relative to similar two-wing
> vehicles5) and achieve a peak lift-to-weight ratio of 4.1 to 1,
> demonstrating greater thrust per muscle mass than typical biological
> counterparts6. The integrated system of the vehicle together with the
> electronics required for untethered flight (a photovoltaic array and a
> signal generator) weighs 259 milligrams, with an additional payload capacity
> allowing for additional onboard devices. Consuming only 110–120 milliwatts
> of power, the system matches the thrust efficiency of similarly sized
> insects such as bees7. This insect-scale aerial vehicle is the lightest thus
> far to achieve sustained untethered flight (as opposed to impulsive jumping8
> or liftoff9).

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1322-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1322-0)

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i_am_nomad
Yet another robotics article where a potential use is “searching for
survivors.”

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mtgx
Yes, "searching for survivors," to ensure they don't escape and tell anyone.

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Zenst
How susceptible are these to bird strikes/attacks?

Asking as birds eat insects, will they be able to easily discriminate these
from the real insects I wonder.

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pazimzadeh
Great point.. What if it could emit a specific noise or scent to warn/repel
birds?

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SisRob
It astounds me how much "energy" can insect "store" given their body size.

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red75prime
Fuels generally have higher energy density than batteries. Research like ([0])
can, in time, result in systems which are on par or exceed biological ones.

[0]: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235043961_Fuel-
Powe...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235043961_Fuel-
Powered_Artificial_Muscles_for_the_Robotic_Soldier)

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aldoushuxley001
These seem like the perfect poison delivery mechanism... no one would ever
know.

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laegooose
Combine these with IoT security, and Black Mirror S3E6 is not fiction anymore

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dwighttk
If that episode lasted for a few seconds.

