An Extra Pair of Wings Ensures This Robot Insect Can Carry Its Own Weight

Robot insects have been in the tech headlines a lot over the past several years, and we’ve all been excited to report on the possibilities. Imagine a tiny, inexpensive, and unobtrusive robot that can fly around tight areas or delicate environments to collect sensor data. Such a robot would be major advancement, but virtually all of the designs we’ve seen lack the payload capacity to carry a battery and are therefore tethered to the ground. This new robot insect design was given an extra set of wings, which may allow it to fly all on its own.

This robot was created by Sawyer Buckminster Fuller, who is now a professor at the University of Washington. Previously, he was a postdoc at Harvard who worked on the RoboBee that made national news. That robot was a major breakthrough, but couldn’t actually carry the weight of a battery — its two wings simply didn’t provide enough thrust. Making them more powerful would have required an even larger battery, resulting in a problem that’s unsolvable with our current energy storage technology.

Fuller’s new design utilizes a total of four wings, which may provide just enough thrust to carry a power source like a supercapacitor. The robot itself weighs a mere 143mg, and with its four wings it can carry additional 260mg — enough for a small power source and sensors. Four wings also make the robot easier to control, and results in more stable flight. For now, this tiny robot insect is still tethered, but the next step is to integrate a power source light enough for it to carry.