robotic fly
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| harvard magazine |
Wood has been perfecting a robotic fly whose eventual applications
might include locating survivors trapped in mines and spying in wartime.
(The research is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, within the Department of Defense.)
That
crossover, which has lasted almost a decade, began with months of
research alongside biologists to study the complex wing movements of
houseflies, bees, and fruit flies to better mimic the mechanisms that
give them flight. Then came the hard part.
Designing an
automated fly implied having the ability to make lightweight, miniature
working parts, a process that Wood says took up the bulk of his doctoral
study, because of the lack of any previous research on which to draw.
“For years, the thrust of our work was ‘How do we do this?’” says Wood.
“There was no existing fabrication paradigm, given the scale we were
operating on, the speed we wanted to operate with, and things like cost,
turnaround, and robustness.” His research group developed and
fabricated a laser carving system that could meticulously cut, shape,
and bend sheets of carbon fiber and polymer—both strong but lightweight
materials—into the necessary microparts.
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