{"id":84419,"date":"2018-11-03T08:44:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T15:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/slightly-heavier-than-a-toothpick-the-first-wireless-insect-size-robot-takes-flight"},"modified":"2018-11-03T08:44:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T15:44:02","slug":"slightly-heavier-than-a-toothpick-the-first-wireless-insect-size-robot-takes-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/slightly-heavier-than-a-toothpick-the-first-wireless-insect-size-robot-takes-flight","title":{"rendered":"Slightly heavier than a toothpick, the first wireless insect-size robot takes flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/slightly-heavier-than-a-toothpick-the-first-wireless-insect-size-robot-takes-flight.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With the rapid advances in drone technology spanning the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, it should come as no surprise that miniature flying robots are on the horizon: Between now and 2020, <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goldmansachs.com\/insights\/technology-driving-innovation\/drones\/\">Goldman Sachs\u2019 forecasts<\/a> a $100 billion market opportunity for drones, helped by growing demand from the commercial and civil government sectors.<\/p>\n<p>What is surprising is that it has taken researchers more than two decades to finally come up with a fully autonomous version. That\u2019s because the electronics needed to power and control the wings were so heavy that, until now, flying robotic insects had to be tethered to a wire attached to an external power source.<\/p>\n<p>Yet a team of engineers at the University of Washington, led by assistant professor Sawyer Fuller, were able to figure it out. Relying on funding from UW, they created RoboFly, a robo-insect powered by an invisible laser beam that is pointed at a photovoltaic cell, which is attached above the robot and converts the laser light into enough electricity to operate its wings.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/11\/02\/about-the-weight-of-a-toothpick-first-wireless-robo-insect-takes-off.html\">https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/11\/02\/about-the-weight-of-a-toothp...s-off.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the rapid advances in drone technology spanning the 20th century, it should come as no surprise that miniature flying robots are on the horizon: Between now and 2020, Goldman Sachs\u2019 forecasts a $100 billion market opportunity for drones, helped by growing demand from the commercial and civil government sectors. What is surprising is that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,1490,9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-government","category-military","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84419","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\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}