According to Word Economic Forum, researchers at SEAS and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed a resilient RoboBee powered by soft artificial muscles that can crash into walls, fall onto the floor, and collide with other RoboBees without being damaged. It is the first microrobot powered by soft actuators to achieve controlled flight.
“Many people in the field have been skeptical that they could be used for flying robots because the power density of those actuators simply hasn’t been high enough and they are notoriously difficult to control. Our actuator has high enough power density and controllability to achieve hovering flight.” said Yufeng Chen, a former graduate student and postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper.
To solve the problem of power density, the researchers built upon the electrically driven soft actuators developed in the lab of David Clarke, the Extended Tarr Family Professor of Materials. These soft actuators are made using dielectric elastomers, soft materials with good insulating properties, that deform when an electric field is applied.
The soft actuators can be easily assembled and replaced in these small-scale robots. To demonstrate various flight capabilities, the researchers built several different models of the soft-powered RoboBee. A two-wing model could take off from the ground but had no additional control. A four-wing, two-actuator model could fly in a cluttered environment, overcoming multiple collisions in a single flight.
Next, the researchers aim to increase the efficiency of the soft-powered robot, which still lags far behind more-traditional flying robots.