BIO-INSPIRED
ROBOT INSECTS
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Have you ever imagined of a future where
you have to wonder whether the tiny insect
flying around your head is actually a fly or a
robot insect which spies on your day to day
activities? When considering the evolution of
robotic technology, definitely that day is not
far off from today with the concept of bio-
inspired robots. Bio-inspired robots can be
described as a situation where the engineers
borrow the concepts from nature to the
robotic technology. Under this concept, bio-
inspired robot Insects are developed as
insect drones. The goal of the engineers was
to analyse the natural flying techniques of
true flies and reproduce a flying robot insect
which has an autonomous flight and which
has the ability to overcome the obstacles in
all environmental conditions. Throughout the
path of achieving this goal, engineers had
faced and overcome many difficulties and the
development of robot insects is still ongoing.
The concept of robot insects was initially
brought to the discussion by Rodney Brooks
and Anita Flynn of MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) in 1998. The main
reason for the need of robot insects was to
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use in military operations and the project was
funded by the US Office of Naval Research and
Defence Advanced Research Project Agency.
The development started under the name of
MFI (Micro-mechanical Flying Insects). After
started developing these robots, engineers
realized that these robots are not only useful
in military operations but also in many other
fields.
After having an advanced study on the flying
patterns of the natural flies the wings, thorax
and actuators of the robot were designed
throughout 3 years. In 2001, engineers were
able to prototype the thrust on the wings and
the behavior according to the wind forces by
using a single wing prototype on a stand inside
a laboratory. This prototype was constructed
using mini stainless-steel beams and polymer
flexures as joints. Since the weight of the
robot should be reduced as much as possible,
after analyzing this prototype, beams were
replaced by using carbon fiber beams and
the joints were replaced using silicon in 2002.
Switching to these materials caused a wing to
had a mass of 0.3 milligrams.
University of Peradeniya GAUGE Magazine