MIT News June 21, 2022
Inspired by fireflies an international team of researchers (USA – MIT, China) developed a 650 mg aerial robot powered by four electroluminescent (EL) dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) that have distinct colors and patterns. They also tweaked the fabrication process so the actuators could emit multicolored and patterned light. To fabricate a glowing actuator, they incorporated electroluminescent zinc sulphate particles into the elastomer. During robot flight, a strong (>40 V/μm) and high frequency (400 Hz) electric field is generated within the DEA, exciting the EL particles to emit light. As they are too light to carry sensors, the robot is tracked using the light they emit and just three smartphone cameras. The electroluminescence could enable the robots to communicate with each other. If sent on a search-and-rescue mission into a collapsed building, for instance, a robot that finds survivors could use lights to signal others and call for help. The work illustrates a novel and effective design for communication and motion tracking in extreme payload-constrained microscale aerial systems and shows the potential of achieving coordinated swarm flights without using well-calibrated in door tracking systems…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE.
Credit: Researchers