Meet the Robofly: Wireless insects powered by lasers could soon be scouring disaster areas for survivors and sniffing out gas leaks
A radical laser powered robot fly the size of a toothpick could soon revolutionize everything from disaster recovery to sniffing out gas leaks
Though insect- sized flying robots have been around for a while, none had been able to take untethered fight until now.
Engineers at the University of Washington have revealed the RoboFly had taken its first untethered flaps, earlier this year, marking the first time a wireless flying robotic insect has flown.
Now the man behind the project has revealed he hopes to have fully autonomous swarms roaming the skies within five years.
RoboFly is only slightly heavier than a toothpick and is powered by an onboard circuit that converts the laser energy into enough electricity to operate its wings.
Previously, the electronics the insects carried to power and control their wings were too heavy for the robots to fly with, meaning they had to remain connected to a wire.
‘ 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 UW Department of Mechanical Engineering.
‘ Our new wireless RoboFly shows they’re much closer to real life.’
Fuller told CNBC the team hopes to soon be able to steer the laser so that RoboFly can hover and fly around.
The robots fly by fluttering tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers.
However, their small size is advantageous as these robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones.
Fuller had previously developed the RoboBee, which had a leash that allowed it to receive power and control through wires from the ground.
It uses a narrow invisible laser beam to power their robot. They pointed the laser beam at a photovoltaic cell, which is attached above RoboFly and converts the laser light into electricity.
'It was the most efficient way to quickly transmit a lot of power to RoboFly without adding much weight,' said co-author Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the UW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering.
Right now, RoboFly can only take off and land, but the team soon hopes that they will be able to move the laser to steer the robotic insect around.