DARPA's Robobugs With Spy Cameras The Size Of An Insect

National News
Apr. 15, 2007

Robot 'insects' that could carry tiny spy cameras into buildings are being developed by the Pentagon.

Defence chiefs say the mechanical bugs could prove far more manoeuvrable than micro-sized versions of conventional aircraft or helicopters.

The Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing four flying 'robobugs' weighing up to 10 grams each and with wingspans of up to 7.5 centimetres.

One of the two companies developing the craft for DARPA – Aerovironment, based in Monrovia, California – aims to have a "rough demonstrator" flying by the middle of 2008.

Insect wings often beat with a complex figure of eight motion which gives excellent mid-air agility - but is very hard for engineers to mimic.

The first hurdle for engineers like Dr Ronald Fearing is to develop mechanisms that will generate enough lift. Insects do this by rapidly beating their wings down and forward and then rotating them back and upward.

Dr Fearing has switched his insect flight model from a fly to a bee increasing the 0.1 gram MFI's (Micromechanical Flying Insect's) wing stroke from 170 beats per second to 275, and reducing the angle through which the wing moves up and down from 70 to 60 degrees. This has tripled its lift.

He said: "The critical thing we have shown is we have enough lift to take off."

At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne flight researcher Dr Dario Floreano is already testing a miniature propeller-driven aircraft.

Dubbed Microflyer it tracks the position of features on the ground and walls using two cameras scanning below and ahead, reports New Scientist.

The aircraft may not look much like a bug but it certainly flies like one, he says.

Dr Floreano said: "The way that it behaves, changes direction, avoids walls and moves indoors is just like the way a housefly moves."

If robotic insects do fly Dr Fearing believes they will quickly become cheap and commonplace.

"Something that weighs less than a tenth of a gram will sell for less than a buck," he said