Design of the first sub-milligram flapping wing aerial vehicle
This enables the creation of tiny, insect-like robots for potential applications in surveillance or environmental monitoring, representing a significant advancement in microrobotics.
The researchers developed the first sub-milligram flapping wing aerial vehicle that mimics insect wing kinematics, achieving a wing stroke amplitude of 90° and wing pitch amplitude of 80°, with a single wing length of 3.5mm and mass comparable to a fruit fly.
Here we report the first sub-milligram flapping wing vehicle which is able to mimic insect wing kinematics. Wing stroke amplitude of 90$^\circ$ and wing pitch amplitude of 80$^\circ$ is demonstrated. This is also the smallest wing-span (single wing length of 3.5mm) device reported yet and is at the same mass-scale as a fruit fly. Assembly has been made simple and requires gluing together 5 components in contrast to higher part count and intensive assembly of other milligram-scale microrobots. This increases the fabrication speed and success-rate of the fully fabricated device. Low operational voltages (70mV) makes testing further easy and will enable eventual deployment of autonomous sub-milligram aerial vehicles.