The
drive towards miniaturization has allowed us to pack more functionality into
our gadgets. Our smartphones are an obvious example where we have amazing
computing power in the palm of our hands.
Drones
of the airplane kind have been shrunk down to hummingbird size. Now there is a
news release that flying robots are being made at bee-size – drone honeybee
size as they fit on a quarter (1).
The
nice engineering trick is that the robots are assembled from multilayered
sheets that are laser-cut so that, with a deft bit of folding, a robot is
produced as if by magic. This will make them cheap and easy to manufacture and
the news release refers to swarms of these robotic drones flying around
searching for missing hikers and pollinating crops.
Neither
of these applications seems to me to be really viable. Real bees are a better
bet as they replace themselves (if we stop poisoning them) and produce honey.
And I can’t quite picture ranger stations around our National Parks with hives
of robo-bees just waiting to be released to go on a search and rescue mission,
but maybe my imagination is deficient.
Maybe
in some hazardous situations they would be invaluable carrying sensors and a
camera. No doubt the military minds will already be working on the
possibilities. I’m hoping the Harvard team won’t be fitting them with stings
any time soon.
The
good news is that, to date, none have escaped. They are all tethered. Maybe in
time they will have photovoltaic cells in their wings and not need to lug
batteries around.
