Robofly is a small artificial flying machine with a wingspan of about 3cm and a weight of 100 milligrams. Several research efforts have focused on this challenge, with inspiration from the biomechanics of real flies. Building roboflies is difficult due to the small and strong components required. The first successful Robofly was built in 2007 by Harvard engineer David Wood, with funding from DARPA. The US military is interested in developing roboflies for surveillance purposes, but their small size presents challenges for communication and resolution. Researchers are still working on optimizing designs.
“Robofly” is a generic name for any attempt at artificial flying machines on the housefly size scale, with a wingspan of about 3cm (about an inch) and a weight of about 100 milligrams. Several research efforts have focused on this challenge, often drawing inspiration from the biomechanics of real flies.
One of the first serious efforts to build a robofly was by the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab at the University of California at Berkeley. Started in 1998 and still ongoing, the project has yet to successfully build a true robofly, although some researchers have collaborated on what eventually became the first successful robofly. The team also made several important observations and discoveries on the mechanics of insect-scale flight. Finding that stainless steel didn’t have the necessary strength-to-weight ratio, the team began building carbon fiber prototypes in 2002.
The first successful Robofly was built by Harvard engineer David Wood in 2007. It had a wingspan of 3 cm and a weight of 60 mg. Since the robofly did not have a control system, it was tethered flight. Like many other Robofly efforts, Wood’s work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA. The US military has been keen to develop roboflies for surveillance purposes, although they would have many other applications.
Building roboflies is difficult for several reasons: the biomechanics of fly flight are not fully understood, and the components needed to build prototypes are so small and strong that special manufacturing techniques are required to build them. For the success of Harvard’s Robofly, laser micromachining of carbon fiber and polymer components was used, with an accuracy of just two microns.
Because roboflies are so small, the surveillance information they could gather in the field would likely be very low resolution, possibly similar to the visual cues picked up by real flies. Their small size would also impede on-board communications with far from very low power requirements. To save space on the actuator, the robofly uses electroactive materials that bend in response to electric fields. As of 2008, the researchers are still working on optimizing the fly designs and getting their pre-existing designs off the ground.
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