I IT-Bombay’ s eng g student among five to successfully flag off wireless Rob oF ly

Yogesh’s research focuses on designing and fabricating insect scale robots. He also works on controlling the flight of these insect scale robots with the help of on-board as well as off-board sensors

A Bombay-IIT student, Yogesh Chukewad, was among a team of five to have successfully created RoboFly, a new tiny wireless flying robot.

Hailing from a small hometown in Nanded, Maharashtra and before joining the University of Washington, Yogesh Chukewad did his MS in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State University and BTech (with Hons) at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Insect-sized flying robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by fluttering tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers, like those seen on their larger drone cousins. Small size is advantageous: These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inacces- sible to big drones.

But current flying robo-insects are still tethered to the ground. The electronics they need to power and control their wings are too heavy for these miniature robots to carry.

Yogesh’s research focuses on designing and fabricating insect scale robots. He also works on controlling the flight of these insect scale robots with the help of onboard as well as off-board sensors. Before joining the University of Washington, he did his MS in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State University and BTech (with Hons.) at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. On the industry front, I worked as an engineer on the Core Engine Simulation team at Caterpillar Inc., Peoria, Illinois from 2014 to 2016.

Insect-sized flying robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by flutter- ing tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers, like those seen on their larger drone cousins. Small size is advantageous: These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones.

But current flying robo-insects are still tethered to the ground. The electronics they need to power and control their wings are too heavy for these miniature robots to carry.

Now, engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time cut the cord and added a brain, allowing their RoboFly to take its first independent flaps. This might be one small flap for a robot, but it's one giant leap for robot-kind. The team will present its findings May 23 at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Brisbane, Australia.

RoboFly is slightly heavier than a toothpick and is powered by a laser beam. It uses a tiny onboard circuit that converts the laser energy into enough electricity to operate its wings.

"Before now, the concept of wireless insect-sized flying robots was science fiction. Would we ever be able to make them work without needing a wire?" said co-author Sawyer Fuller, an assistant professor in the University of Washington Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Our new wireless RoboFly shows they're much closer to real life,” Fuller affirms.