Flying robots are common these days (wow, how’s that for a modern sentence?), but the majority of them fly using rotors and propellers. Making a machine that flies with actual wings is tricky, since it’s kind of like making an android that can sprint; you’re trying to mechanize a physical process that is intrinsic to the creature using it.
A team of Dutch scientists have made a big leap in the field, with nothing but a little fruit fly as their inspiration. The DelFly Nimble possesses a set of four plastic wings that can rotate on an axis. The wings can beat about 17 times per second and propel the machine a little over 15 miles per hour. These wings allow the robot to perform quick banking turns, similar to the fruit fly on which its design is based.
The TU Delft researchers at the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory believe the DelFly has a double benefit for their research. Not only is it a big step in the field of drone robotics, experiments performed with the DelFly can teach them a lot about how insects move.
