Robotic Bee Uses Explosions to Jump ut of the Water, and Can Swim in It

Robots usually come in one of three flavors: land, air, or water. Within each of those broad categories, most are designed to move in one particular way. Water robots, for instance, are usually designed to either drive on the surface like a boat, or under the surface like a submarine. Now, a new design from the Wyss Institute and Harvard called RoboBee can do both—and fly.

Combination aerial and aquatic robots have been made before, but the RoboBee is unique and weighs 1,000 times less than any other design. This works because it has an extremely lightweight structure. That allows it to sit on the surface of the water using just water tension (just like many insects do). It can then dive under the surface and swim, or take off and fly into the air.

What makes the RoboBee really interesting is how it actually takes off: by using a tiny explosion. It’s too light to carry its own combustible fuel, so it actually uses electrolysis to convert water into oxyhydrogen. When the RoboBee is ready to take flight, an igniter creates a spark which combusts the oxyhydrogen and generates enough lift to break the surface tension.

There are still some kinks to work out, particularly when it comes to the actual flying. Because it’s so small and light, outfitting RoboBee with the usual sensors is impossible. But, the research team is confident they’ll solve that problem soon. Once they do, the tiny robot has a lot of potential for research, environmental monitoring, and even search and rescue.