The miniature electronic insect army in science fiction movies may not be far from reality...
Remember the third season of "Black Mirror"
Those ultra-small drones of bionic bees?
They are both a substitute for biological bees
Monitor again
finally
Still a crazy weapon...
But did you make it? ? Although "Black Mirror" is only a science fiction drama, in reality, the bee drone has already begun to become a reality!
Researchers from Harvard University have succeeded in developing a robot called RoboBees after continuous attempts!
RoboBees has been developed for 20 years and is the first practical model of flying insects. Its weight is only 86 milligrams, which is smaller than a small flying vehicle in the ordinary definition, and even lighter than a real bee.
Don’t look at this bee-shaped micro-aircraft robot, which is very small, but it has all the internal organs. It is not only equipped with a microcomputer "brain" and a battery pack that is small and light enough to carry it high in the sky, it also has sensor tentacles and multiple strips. Legs~
RoboBees' design is inspired by fly bionics. It has extremely thin wings and "flying muscles" made of piezoelectric actuators. A pair of wings that buzz during flight are fixed to the top of a slender carbon fiber torso.
Using the principle of bionics, RoboBees can fly short distances with high-frequency vibrating wings like a bee, beating 120 times per second.
Like real flies, these wings can move, rotate, and flap independently. The flapping of the wings produces a downward airflow, which makes the bee robot rise into the air. Its forward and backward flight is accomplished by tilting the body.
In addition, its body is also equipped with an electrostatic board containing a carbon fiber base, copper electrodes, and polyamide coating, and a foam column is installed under its feet.
RoboBees' super mini body makes its take-off posture a bit strange, but this does not prevent the robot from taking off, circling and changing direction.
At the same time, in order to reduce the power loss in flight, the research team referred to the behavior of birds resting on trees during long-distance flights, and the bee robots can greatly save energy by landing and resting from time to time during the flight. It's the same way as bees fly and rest.
They also added an electrostatic adsorption function to the "little bee" to reduce the power loss caused by hovering. After charging, the electrostatic plate can be attached to any surface that can react with static electricity, including leaves, wood, glass, etc.
At the same time, it can fly again from the surface of the object at any time like a real flying insect~
The foam column can play a role in cushioning during landing. If there is no foam column, RoboBees will be bounced from the surface after landing...
Since its first exposure in 2012, this coin-sized bee robot has been continuously upgraded. After that, he even learned the skills of taking off, landing, flying according to pre-programmed routes, and so on.
With the continuous technological breakthroughs of researchers, RoboBees even learned swimming skills and became a water and sky amphibious robot.
At this time, RoboBee broke through the surface tension of water and realized the ability to jump from water to air. And from the flying state to hitting the liquid and entering the bottom of the water, it will sink for a second or two, and then move forward in the water at a wing-flag frequency of 9 Hz.
It’s hard to imagine that a fake bee smaller than a bee can actually go to the world and the water to be omnipotent...
After cultivating the aerial and underwater capabilities, the researchers decided to create a pair of eyes for the mechanical bee. However, traditional cameras are not capable of this difficult task. It is difficult to find a small and lightweight camera that is comparable to a slender bee robot. match.
So researchers thought of lidar, which is the same principle as the collision avoidance technology used in autonomous vehicles, but this is by no means a simple task. You must know that RoboBees currently weighs 80 micrograms, and the lightest lidar system is currently 800 grams... Besides, energy is also a problem...
Speaking of shortcomings, in addition to the need to develop stronger and lighter materials, smaller batteries, and more effective control systems for this kind of robot, researchers are also solving the problem of this kind of robot flying in strong winds in order to More like a real bee~
Robert Wood, the head of the Harvard team responsible for this project, made a very bold statement: "Robots are the next Internet. After the Internet, it is another major thing that will affect our lives, from medicine to space exploration."
Although it is still far from the ultimate goal, Robert Wood is still optimistic that this robot has a very wide range of applications, and it can easily handle situations that are too dangerous for humans to handle, and it costs less.
At present, with the continuous evolution of RoboBees, the "tail"-like power cord that was previously restricted by the bottom has also been solved by researchers...
Researchers improved its actuator and gear ratio, installed solar cells and on-board electronic equipment on the fuselage, and changed the RoboBees power source to finally be able to fly freely without restraint!
However, there are still shortcomings, that is, it needs about 3 solar levels to provide power. A sun is far from reaching the requirements, and the research team is also working to solve this problem...
It is not difficult to imagine that when RoboBees continues to evolve, if one day it really solves the problem of battery life, its application range will be as wide as it is, and it will be used in search and rescue, environmental monitoring, innovative medical equipment and other fields in the future.
And because of its size and flight advantages, RoboBees can also be used in the supervision and espionage industry, secretly lurking by your side, so the mini electronic insect army in science fiction movies may not be far away from reality...
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