This Tiny Robot Is Part Bee, Part Crane Fly—and It Finally Has Solid Legs

Imagine tiny robotic bees buzzing around fields of wildflowers, helping real bees carry out their crucial pollinating duties decades in the future. It’s a vision that Harvard’s Microrobotics Laboratory has been working on for years. The barrier? Until recently, the only landing the Harvard RoboBee had mastered was a crash landing. Harvard researchers have now armed their tiny RoboBee with four long, graceful landing appendages inspired by crane fly legs. (Crane flies are those nightmarish but harmless insects that look like flying spiders and people commonly misidentify as giant mosquitos). As detailed in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics, a soft landing brings RoboBees one step closer to practical applications that today would seem straight out of a sci-fi movie, such as environmental monitoring, disaster surveillance, artificial pollination, or even the manipulation of delicate organisms. “Previously, if we were to go in for a landing, we’d turn off the ve ... Read full article.