{"id":246100,"date":"2026-10-29T05:56:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/insect-inspired-flying-robot-bounces-back-after-collisions"},"modified":"2026-10-29T05:56:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:56:52","slug":"insect-inspired-flying-robot-bounces-back-after-collisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/insect-inspired-flying-robot-bounces-back-after-collisions","title":{"rendered":"Insect-inspired flying robot bounces back after collisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Flying insects, such as fruit flies, bees, dragonflies and mosquitoes, can dart through narrow spaces and survive collisions with various objects. In contrast, many flying robots fall, suffer damage or even break down when they hit nearby surfaces or objects.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) have developed a tiny robot that could better replicate the resilience of flying insects. The new robot, presented in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/scirobotics.aed8148\" target=\"_blank\">a paper<\/a> published in <i>Science Robotics<\/i>, could potentially explore areas that are difficult for other robots or humans to reach, recovering quickly after collisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur lab has been developing soft robotics for years. We were inspired by how flying insects survive collisions and other physical disturbances,\u201d Qibing Pei, senior author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. \u201cMany insect-sized robots rely on fragile components, which makes operating beyond the laboratory difficult. We saw an opportunity to use electrically responsive polymer materials to create a simpler, more resilient design.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flying insects, such as fruit flies, bees, dragonflies and mosquitoes, can dart through narrow spaces and survive collisions with various objects. In contrast, many flying robots fall, suffer damage or even break down when they hit nearby surfaces or objects. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Davis [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}