Flying microrobots are diminutive drones developed by a group of researchers from MIT, Harvard, and the City University of Hong Kong.
These microrobots are powered by soft actuators made of thin rubber cylinders coated in a carbon nanotube, producing an electrostatic force that squeezes and elongates the rubber cylinder when voltage is being applied.
They recently proposed a new fabrication technique by removing air bubbles to produce low-voltage, power-dense artificial muscles that can improve the actuation of these microrobots.
A swarm of these robots can have possible applications to pollinate a field of crops, search the rubble of a collapsed building for survivors, or navigate complex machinery to check for defects.
key points:
- can flap its tiny wings 500 times per second for collision recovery
- weight is 0.6 g!
Watch a short video of this below:
More information:
- https://news.mit.edu/2021/micro-robots-artificial-muscles-1216
- https://news.mit.edu/2021/researchers-introduce-new-generation-tiny-agile-drones-0302
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