Harvard's RoboBee Masters Landing, Paving Way For Agricultural Pollination

After more than a decade of development, Harvard's insect-sized flying robot, RoboBee, has successfully learned to land using dragonfly-inspired legs and improved flight controls. The researchers see RoboBee as a potential substitute for endangered bees, assisting in the pollination of plants. From a report: RoboBee is a micro flying robot that Harvard has been developing since 2013. As the name suggests, it is the size of a bee, capable of flying like a bee and hovering in mid-air. Its wings are 3 cm long and it weighs only 0.08 g. The weight was reduced by using light piezoelectric elements instead of motors. Piezoelectric elements change shape when an electric current flows through them. The researchers were able to make RoboBee flap its wings 120 times per second by turning the current on and off, which is similar to actual insects.

While RoboBee exhibited flight capabilities comparable to those of a bee, the real problem was landing. Being too light and having short wings, it could not withstand the air turbulence generated during landing. It is easy to understand if you think about the strong winds generated when a helicopter approaches the ground. Christian Chan, a graduate student at Harvard who participated in the research, said, "Until now, it was a matter of shutting off the robot while it attempted to land and praying for a proper touchdown."

To ensure RoboBee's safe landing, it was important to dissipate energy just before touchdown. Hyun Nak-Seung, a professor at Purdue University who participated in the development of RoboBee, explained, "For any flying object, the success of landing depends on minimizing speed just before impact and rapidly dissipating energy afterward. Even for tiny flapping like RoboBee's, the ground effect cannot be ignored, and after landing, the risk of bouncing or rolling makes the situation more complex." The findings have been published in the journal Science Robotics.

Bee 911

[backslashdot]

Oh boy, I'm sure glad they taught the things how to land, I was worried they were planning a bee 9/11.

Birds?

[The Grim Reefer]

Next, how are they going to keep birds from trying to eat robo-bees? Or they can send out ED-209 to guard them and act as scarecrows.

Bee airship robot drone

[will4]

Wondering here why they don't just use a micro airship with a tethered drone to land on the flower....

Loads less energy needed + a place to put a solar panel on top of...

Re:

[The Grim Reefer]

Tether the airship to the ground and no solar panel is needed.

Re:

[newbie_fantod]

Just go with hand pollination by humans - it could be a viable income source for all the financial analysts displaced by AI

Next problem: power

[Tony Isaac]

The video in the story shows that the RoboBee is attached to the end of a wire, presumably to supply power. Once they un-tether it, they'll have to find a way to provide power to the flapping wings. Batteries would add significant weight, and would likely struggle to power the bots for more than a short burst. Real bees are able to feed off the nectar in the flowers they visit. Obtaining electric power from flowers might be a bit more of a challenge.

In summary, it's going to be quite some time before we see swarms of these "bees" hovering around farmers' fields.

Re:

[jools33]

Maybe some kind of solar power option would work best... or one that generates power from pollen gathered (chemical energy)...

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

Yep, maybe. Both of these options will add significant weight, complexity, and cost to the device.

Re:

[wonky_admin]

Maybe they could have a mother-drone that flies above them tethering power down? (which can also scare away birds that try to eat the robobees)

Re:

[Gravis Zero]

For energy purposes, I would think a "mother-drone" would likely be a wheeled platform that goes down rows of plants that require pollination. Scaring away birds isn't difficult because it just needs to make a bit of sound.

Can "RoboBee" break down the Cloudflare blockade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would make enough noise to make it stop

Why is this even necessary?

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

That money would be much better spent figuring out ways to protect the real bees and the environment they (and we) live in.

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

Protecting the bees does not really cost money in that sense.
It costs billions to the industries that sell unneeded poisons, though.
And if you ask me if I want either to participate in a natural bees protection research program, or in a miniature coleoptera/bee research project: I guess the answer is obvious.

Bottom line that is not how research works. There plenty of gigantic pots of money. And many many responsible to hand out appropriated amounts to as many projects as suitable.

Unless you assign another E

Re:

[tlhIngan]

That's OK. Harvard's refusal to bow to Trump means all this kind of research going on at Harvard is going to be cancelled. Something like $2B worth of grants because Harvard doesn't want to kick out DEI programs, while ironically being forced to have a "D"iversity of viewpoints. Yes, no DEI, but yes DEI as long as it's our viewpoints.

Apparently they're having to abandon years-long agricultural research projects now and get rid of samples because there's no longer money to store them for research.

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

Way to link two issues that are completely unrelated.

Also, DEI of yesteryear is gone, DEI now stands for grifter team B: Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka.

Re:

[bugs2squash]

They may be related if PR companies are going to flood out positive news stories about Harvard.

I'm not saying that was the motive behind this story but it will be interesting to see if Harvard makes an attempt to become more "relatable" in the court of public opinion in the coming months.

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

My point is that research into artificial bees is largely pointless regardless what political conflict is broiling between the trump administration and Harvard. Therefore I see little "positive" about this particular story, it is just someone's hobby to chase low Reynolds numbers.

Re:

[qeveren]

Why would you want to protect natural pollenators who do the job for free when you can sell robotic ones?

Why land

[bugs2squash]

I don't know why it needs to land. If they want to collect them for recharging they could just fly them in front of a vacuum cleaner and collect them in the filter or provide a suitably soft landing area or use magnetic levetation over the landing pad etc.

Do they sting?

[rossdee]

Or make honey?

Re:

[Growlley]

and you dont want to meet the robotic Asian hornets that will show up.

but

[Growlley]

the honey is oily and has a metallic taste!

If we have to rely on bots to polinate ...

[Qbertino]

... our crops as a replacement for bees we are seriously screwed. How about we get moving a little faster on that way overdue global Eco-Turnaround?

Nothing is "paved here"...

[gweihir]

But reporting on IT and robotics advances is getting even mored dumb.

It will probably kill real bees, somwhow.

[BrendaEM]

I can see this coming.

Will this project survive Trump's vendetta?

[wheelbarrow]

Trump is hell bent on punishing Harvard for daring to stand up to him. Harvard may reduce spending to survive the battle. Will this project survive?

Re:

[RoccamOccam]

Trump is hell bent on making Harvard abandon its racist policies. But, that's sooo terrible to Democrats.

Re:

[wheelbarrow]

Trump is hell bent on making Harvard abandon its racist policies. But, that's sooo terrible to Democrats.

What Harvard racist policies are you referring to?

Black Mirror episode anyone?

[rklrkl]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned the Black Mirror season 3 episode "Hated In The Nation", which featured none other than a swarm of robobees. Predictably for Black Mirror, things didn't turn out too well. A little easter egg for season 7's episode 1 ("Common People") is that Rashida Jones' teacher character talks about robobees in her class as a nod to the earlier episode.