Smallest tethered flying robot capable of landing on ceilings

In May 2016, a group of Harvard roboticists announced that they had developed the smallest tethered flying robot capable of landing on ceilings; this robot is an advanced version of the Harvard RoboBee, the smallest tethered flying robot. In its original form, the RoboBee could only land on flat/smooth and horizontal surfaces, by turning off its wings and falling. In this revised version, scientists modified the RoboBee by introducing an electro-adhesive patch, which makes the robot capable of landing on the underside of materials such as wood, bricks, natural leaves and glass. This electro-adhesive patch employs the same science that causes a balloon to stick to a wall, and in the RoboBee consists of a conducting material embedded into an insulating one. Powering the patch leads to an accumulation of electric charges. Bringing the patch into contact with a landing surface induces local charge accumulations in the perching target. Charges in the electro-adhesive patch and the target then attract each other, allowing the robot to attach to the surface. The robot has a wingspan of 36 mm, weighs 100 mg and flaps its wings 120 times per second. The robot was presented to the public on 20 May 2016 in the journal Science. The added perching capability has the potential to extend the RoboBee’s mission time, a crucial step towards its successful application in search and rescue.