Is it a bird?…is it a plane?… or is it a government surveillance camera that is watching us?
We all have seen them in the Sci-fi movies little robotic bugs walking around turning into robots or used as a weapon.
And now they became real
It was a long time ago when the computers were so big they would take up a whole building. Now they are so small they can be mistaken as a bug .. oh wait they are meant to be mistaken as a bug.
in 2008 US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies ‘as tiny as bumblebees’ that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to ‘photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.’
this was almost 5 years ago and since then a lot of countries working on these robots. France and Netherlands are couple of those countries.
Scientists have taken their inspiration from animals which have evolved over millennia to the perfect conditions for flight.
Nano-biomimicry MAV design has long been studied by DARPA, and in 2008 the U.S. government’s military research agency conducted a symposium discussing ‘bugs, bots, borgs and bio-weapons.’
Researchers have now developed bio-inspired drones with bug eyes, bat ears, bird wings, and even honeybee-like hairs to sense biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could one day be used for surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue missions.
Dr Bomphrey said: ‘Scary spider robots were featured in Michael Crichton’s 1980s film Runaway – but our robots will be much more scaled down and look more like the quidditch ball in the Harry Potter films, because of its ability to hover and flutter.
‘The problem for scientists at the moment is that air crafts can’t hover and helicopters can’t go fast. And it is impossible to make them very small.
‘With insects you get a combination of both these assets in miniature. And when you consider we have been flying for just over a hundred years as opposed to 350 million years, I would say it is they who have got it right, and not us!’
