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Six robots inspired by real-life animals
By Cat DiStasio Many scientific and engineering developments were lifted right out of nature, but none more so than robots built to act like real-life animals. Biomimicry is the term for innovations like these, which draw inspiration from the power of nature to solve the toughest human problems. Robots can take on some pretty unlikely tasks, from pollinating flowers as bee populations decline to detecting pollution in waterways. Other robots are designed purely for fun, like this 12-legged robot that walks like a crab and is powered by the sun.
DARPA's Maple leaf Remote Control drone takes first flight (video)
After five years behind locked doors, researchers at Lockheed Martin's Intelligent Robotics Laboratories in New Jersey have emerged with a working prototype of the "Samarai," a tiny DARPA-commissioned surveillance drone. The nano air vehicles (NAVs), modeled after falling Maple leaf seeds, are designed to be super light weight and agile for vertical lift off, hovering, and navigation in tight spaces. Like your favorite $5 Subway sammie, these surveillance bots are a foot long, but instead of being shoveled in your mouth, they're thrown like boomerangs into flight and controlled using a tablet app or a basic remote. These eyes in the sky will officially launch next week at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Conference, but until then you can check out the video of their first flight below. Update: Lockheed Martin wrote in to let us know that although originally commissioned by DARPA, this project is currently funded internally. Lockheed also noted that the flight recorded in the video is only a test flight, rather than a first flight for the Samarai.
DARPA's Nano Air Vehicle program puts UAVs on a diet
It's not like DARPA hasn't been trying to miniaturize unmanned aerial vehicles already, but its Nano Air Vehicle program is yet another attempt to find tiny, ultra-lightweight devices that could theoretically "perform indoor and outdoor military missions." More specifically, it's looking for something less than 7.5-centimeters and under 10-grams, and the overriding goal is to "explore novel, bio-inspired, conventional and unconventional configurations to provide the warfighter with unprecedented capability for urban mission operations." Reportedly, AeroVironment already has an idea in mind for such a drone (pictured), but as these type things always go, we've no idea how soon we'll see critters like these take to the skies with a thumb-sized American flag plastered on the side.[Via BoingBoing]
