[Video] Harvard’s RoboBees Can Also Swim

Back in 2013, researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard created a robotic bee that could take off, hover and fly along a preset pathway.  Although the bee has to be tethered for power and navigational computing, researchers hope to conquer that limitation sometime in the future.

And now, a great article on Popular Science reports that the RoboBees have a new trick, they can swim:

The bees are so small and light that the surface tension of the water prevents them from delicately sinking into a glass. But the researchers found that if the bees cannonball into the water, they turn into very happy swimmers. As it turns out, moving through the air and moving through water aren’t that different for the RoboBees—they simply flap their wings more slowly underwater.

This great video from the IEEE Spectrum YouTube channel shows a RoboBee in action, both flying and swimming:

The PopSci article reports that RoboBees will not be replacing or assisting real bees with the task of pollinating flowers any time soon, saying:

For now, the researchers are focused on expanding the RoboBee’s basic capabilities, including new tricks like swimming. And even if we got to a point where RoboBees were able to pollinate crops, the robotic option would remain far more expensive than the natural, biological source of inspiration.

So, although RoboBees are pretty limited in what they can do now, we have to agree with the final conclusion of the article, “But they’re still incredibly cool.”

 

Source: PopSci.com – “FLYING ROBOT BEES CAN NOW SWIM, TOO”

Featured Photo Credit: Wyss Institute/Harvard