Never kill a bee, robot or not.
The RoboBee is the size of an insect, and it flies like one. Scientists and engineers intent on developing a tiny flying self-directed robot looked to the bee for inspiration. Another unlikely source is children’s pop-up books as the individual RoboBee begins with its parts in a plane. Currently, the tethered RoboBees weigh less than four thousandths of an ounce. The goal is to have the power source be self-contained, but due to the size limit the power would last less than a half hour. Extending the flying time is critical for the intended applications.
The RoboBee was designed for
- Search and rescue missions, particularly after disasters like earthquakes
- Surveillance
- High-resolution weather and climate mapping
- Traffic monitoring
- Crop pollination as a stop-gap measure until we can prevent bee colonies from dying. This is said to be up to 20 years off, and at a prohibitive cost for the number of…
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Julaina Kleist-Corwin 