Robotic lightning bugs take flight

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 […]

Scientists develop insect-sized flying robots with flapping wings

Science Daily  February 2, 2022 Current flapping MAVs require transmission systems between their actuators and wings, which introduce energetic losses and additional mass, hindering performance. Researchers in the UK have developed a high-performance electrostatic flapping actuation system, the liquid-amplified zipping actuator (LAZA), which induces wing movement by direct application of liquid-amplified electrostatic forces at the wing root, eliminating the requirement of any transmission system and their associated downsides. Thrust up to 5.73 millinewtons was achieved while consuming only 243 milliwatts of electrical power, implying a thrust-to-power ratio of 23.6 newtons per kilowatt, like state-of-the-art flapping MAVs, helicopter rotors, and commercial […]

Winged microchip is smallest-ever human-made flying structure

Science Daily  September 22, 2021 An international team of researchers (South Korea, UK, USA – Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois, University of Purdue, China, Hong Kong) studied wind-dispersed seeds to build microfliers and optimized its aerodynamics to ensure that it falls at a slow velocity in a controlled manner. They fabricated precursors to flying structures in flat, planar geometries and bonded them onto a slightly stretched rubber substrate. When the stretched substrate is relaxed, a controlled buckling process occurred causing the wings to “pop up” into precisely defined three-dimensional forms. It included sensors, a […]

Scientists create rechargeable swimming microrobots using oil and water

Science Daily July 15, 2021 Many microorganisms exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this principle has been notably absent from model systems of active, self-propelled micro swimmers. An international team of researchers (Bulgaria, Poland, UK) has introduced a class of micro swimmers that spontaneously self-assembles and swims without using external forces, driven instead by surface phase transitions induced by temperature variations. The swimmers are made from alkane droplets dispersed in an aqueous surfactant solution, which start to self-propel on cooling, pushed by rapidly growing thin elastic tails. When heated, the […]

Insect-sized robot navigates mazes with the agility of a cheetah

Science Daily  July 2, 2021 Researchers in Japan used a curved piezoelectric thin film driven at its structural resonant frequency as the main body of an insect-scale soft robot for its fast translational movements, and two electrostatic footpads were used for its swift rotational motions. These two schemes were simultaneously executed during operations through a simple two-wire connection arrangement. They achieved a high relative centripetal acceleration of 28 body length per square second which is better than those of common insects, including the cockroach. In demonstration the robot passed through a 120-centimeter-long track in a maze within 5.6 seconds. The […]

Researchers use flying insects to drop sensors from air, land them safely on the ground

TechXplore  October 8, 2020 In addition to the challenges of achieving low-power consumption and long-range communication, airdropping wireless sensors is difficult because it requires the sensor to survive the impact when dropped in mid-air. Researchers at the University of Washington designed insect-scale wireless sensors that come fully integrated with an onboard power supply and a lightweight mechanical actuator to detach from the aerial platform. The 37 mg mechanical release mechanism can drop the sensor during flight, using only 450 μJ of energy as well as a wireless communication link that can transmit sensor data at 33 kbps up to 1 […]

A soft robotic insect that survives being flattened by a fly swatter

Science Daily  December 18, 2019 An international team of researchers (Switzerland, France) developed a soft robot called DEAnsect and equipped with dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). They developed two versions: the first, tethered using ultra-thin wires, is exceptionally robust. It can be folded, hit with a fly swatter or squashed by a shoe without impacting its ability to move. The second is an untethered model that is fully wireless and autonomous, weighing less than 1 gram and carrys its battery and all electronic components on its back. This intelligent insect is equipped with a microcontroller for a brain and photodiodes as […]

Tiny vibration-powered robots are the size of the world’s smallest ant

Nanowerk  July 17, 2019 Using two-photon polymerization lithography researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have designed and 3D printed micro-bristle-bots consisting of a piezoelectric actuator glued onto a polymer body. The actuator generates vibration and is powered externally, a piezoelectric shaker beneath the surface on which the robots move, from an ultrasound/sonar source, or even from a tiny acoustic speaker. The springy legs go up and down, propelling the micro-bot forward. Each robot can be designed to respond to different vibration frequencies depending on leg size, diameter, design and overall geometry. The amplitude of the vibrations controls the speed […]

The RoboBee flies solo

Science Daily  June 26, 2019 Researchers at Harvard University have demonstrated a sustained untethered flight of an insect-sized 90-milligram flapping-wing microscale aerial vehicle. It uses four wings driven by two alumina-reinforced piezoelectric actuators to increase aerodynamic efficiency and achieve a peak lift-to-weight ratio of 4.1 to 1. The integrated system weighs 259 milligrams, with an additional payload capacity allowing for additional onboard devices. Consuming only 110–120 milliwatts of power, the system matches the thrust efficiency of similarly sized insects such as bees…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE 

The first walking robot that moves without GPS

Science Daily  February 13, 2019 To navigate safely in hostile environment, desert ants assess their direction from the polarized pattern of skylight and judge the distance traveled based on both a stride-counting method and the optic flow. Using this concept a team of researchers in France has designed AntBot equipped with an optical compass used to determine its direction by means of polarized light, and by an optical movement sensor directed to the sun to measure the distance covered. Armed with this information, AntBot was able to explore its environment and to return on its own to its base, with […]