Berkeley engineers create world's smallest wireless flying robot, fits between your fingertips

A team of engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created the world's smallest wireless flying robot that's capable of hovering, changing trajectory, and hitting small targets.

The super-small flying robot is less than 1cm in diameter, weighing in at only 21mg, making it the world's smallest wireless robot that's capable of controlled flight. For a robot to fly, it might have a power source like a battery, as well as electronics for flight control, both of which can be hard to integrate into something so small and lightweight.

In order to overcome this hurdle, the Berkeley engineers used an external magnetic field to power the flying robot and control the flight path. The flying robot is shaped like a small propeller, packing two small magnets. Under the influence of an external magnetic field, these magnets are attracted and repelled, causing the propeller to spin and generate enough lift to raise the flying robot off of the ground. After that, the flight path of the robot can be precisely controlled by modulating the strength of the magnetic field.

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The next smallest robot with similar flight abilities is 2.8cm in diameter, closer to 3x the size of Berkeley's new flying robot.

Liwei Lin, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, said: "Bees exhibit remarkable aeronautical abilities, such as navigation, hovering and pollination, that artificial flying robots of similar scale fail to do. This flying robot can be wirelessly controlled to approach and hit a designated target, mimicking the mechanism of pollination as a bee collects nectar and flies away".

Study co-first author Fanping Sui, who recently completed a Ph.D. in engineering at UC Berkeley, added: "Tiny flying robots are useful for exploring small cavities and other complicated environments. This could be used for artificial pollination or inspecting small spaces, like the inside of a pipe".