The Buzzzz at Caltech

It looks like a dragonfly that’s been pumping iron. In fact, this bug is metal--a palm-sized, flapping-wing machine built in Yu-Chong Tai’s lab at Caltech’s Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering. Dubbed the “Microbat,” the creation is a diminutive potential superhero cobbled together with obsolete semiconductor-making machinery and old motors from vibrating pagers, along with batteries, polymers and titanium.

Theoretically, microbats designed to withstand 1,000-degree heat could someday save lives by whirring through smoke and flames with infrared sensors. Soldiers could send fold-up Microbat aircraft behind enemy lines to beam back reconnaissance information. And our city’s swarms of window-rattling news copters could someday be replaced by Microbats armed with tiny cameras. Fleets of these small MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) could even replace costly space satellites.

But the real prize is the basic aerodynamic knowledge gained by learning to mimic flapping-wing flight. This could lead to advances on a range of scientific fronts, from better understanding of blood flow to the creation of submarines that swim like fish. “Since the Wright brothers, almost all the [development] effort has been on fixed-wing aircraft,” says Tai, 41. Those craft have already surpassed nature by flying at supersonic speeds. Now the Microbats’ flapping-wing flight is set to outdo the impressive midair feats of bats, hummingbirds and similar flying creatures. “We hope to build an airplane that maneuvers better than birds or bats or today’s fixed-wing aircraft,” says Tai. “Flapping wings have totally different aerodynamics. Insects and some fish move on a vortex that they generate, and they have active flow control--this has never been done with human-made aircraft.”

It took 10 scientists a million taxpayer dollars and 18 months of tinkering to create the first Microbat. So, be careful with that fly swatter.

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For more info, see https://mems.caltech.edu.