Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Flight of the RoboBee

Tiny flying vehicles require intricate design trade-offs and have previously relied on an external power supply. The sustained flight of an untethered, insect-sized robot represents a major advance.
  1. Kenny Breuer

    1. Kenny Breuer is in the School of Engineering, Brown University, Rhode Island 02912, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Going back to the time of Leonardo da Vinci, animal flight has inspired human enquiry, and we have sought to emulate nature by building machines that attempt to fly using flapping wings. In a paper in Nature, Jafferis et al.1 report a key step towards the emulation of insect flight with what they claim to be the lightest insect-scale aerial vehicle so far to have achieved sustained, untethered flight.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 570, 448-449 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01964-3

References

  1. Jafferis, N. T., Helbling, E. F., Karpelson, M. & Wood, R. J. Nature 570, 491–495 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Wang, Z. J. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 37, 183–210 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Chin, D. D. & Lentink, D. J. Exp. Biol. 219, 920–932 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Keennon, M., Klingebiel, K. & Won, H. 50th AIAA Aerospace Sci. Meet. incl. New Horizons Forum Aerospace Expos. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2012-588 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Karásek, M., Muijres, F. T., De Wagter, C., Remes, B. D. W. & de Croon, G. C. H. E. Science 361, 1089–1094 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. James, J., Iyer, V., Chukewad, Y., Gollakota, S. & Fuller, S. B. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Automation https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2018.8460582 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ma, K. Y., Felton, S. M. & Wood, R. J. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots Syst. 1133–1140 (2012).

  8. Zou, Y., Zhang, W. & Zhang, Z. IEEE Trans. Robot. 32, 1285–1289 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Balasubramanian, S., Chukewad, Y. M., James, J. M., Barrows, G. L. & Fuller, S. B. 7th IEEE Int. Conf. Biomed. Robot. Biomechatron. 1297–1302 (2018).

  10. Drew, D. S. & Pister, K. S. J. Int. Conf. Manip. Automation Robot. Small Scales https://doi.org/10.1109/MARSS.2017.8001934 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links