RoboFly Is the First Flying Insect-Size Robot that Can Soar Without a Tether

If you keep up on tech news, you’ve probably seen a handful of robotic flying insects over the past few years. We’ve even featured a few of them here on Hackster. But, as impressive as those have been, they all “cheat” in the sense that they’re not actually completely self-contained. Because batteries and microcontrollers are heavy, those remain stationary on the ground and connect to the robot itself with tiny wires.

Now, researchers from the University of Washington have developed a tiny fly-like robot that can take to the skies completely wirelessly. RoboFly is just a few centimeters long, and weighs about the same as a toothpick. Removing the tether required two major breakthroughs: providing power without a heavy battery, and giving RoboFly its own brain to control the beating of the wings.

That brain is a tiny microcontroller that’s part of a simple circuit placed onto a flexible membrane. The complete circuit, including the microcontroller, is light enough that the robot is still able to take flight. For power, that circuit also integrates a photovoltaic cell and a voltage boost converter. Ambient light alone wouldn’t be enough to generate the necessary power, so instead the researchers shine concentrated light from a laser beam onto the photovoltaic cell.

The electricity being output from the photovoltaic cell is still only about 7V, but the boost converter is able to push that up to the 240V needed for flying. In the video, you can see RoboFly taking off, and then immediately landing. That’s because the laser beam is no longer pointing directly at the photovoltaic cell, and so it looses power. But, the researchers believe they can come up with a system that keeps the laser continuously aimed at photovoltaic cell — facilitating long term flight.