Robodiptera; Miniature Flying Robots  

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Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 407 no. 8834 (May 2013), page 69.
Topik: Robots; Research & Development--R&D; Miniaturization; Aircraft; Science; Technology

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Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.76 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada

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In 2007 anti-war protesters in America claimed they were being watched by small hovering craft that looked like dragonflies. Officials maintained they really were dragonflies. Whatever the truth, robotic flies actually are now getting airborne. This week the successful flight of what are probably the smallest hovering robots yet was reported in Science by Robert Wood and his colleagues at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. These robots (pictured above) are the size of crane flies. Most small flying robots are helicopters--kept aloft by one or more rotating wings. These, though, are ornithopters, meaning their wings flap. Wood, as he is quick to point out, is not trying to build a military drone. Rather, it is the basic science behind flying insects that he and his team are interested in. No doubt the armed forces are taking a keen interest in this sort of work. But civilian applications such as search and rescue, he thinks, are likely to be as important as military and security ones. Wood's robots are modelled on a hoverfly called Eristalis. They have a long way to go before they can mimic the precision of such a creature's flight. They can, nevertheless, hover. What is really needed is a breakthrough in battery technology.

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