Tiny Flyer Navigates Like Fly

Assassin bug writes to tell us the Discovery Channel is reporting on a new ultralight autonomous aircraft that could be the next 'fly on the wall'. From the article: "The 10-gram microflyer, being developed by a team of researchers lead by Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has a 36-centimeter (14-inch) wingspan. But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue."

Search and rescue?

[liliafan]

It is kinda cool that they have developed this, but:

But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

Who are they planning on rescuing? Commando Ants trained for search and destroy? I could even see this doing assasination missions, a little needle a nerve agent, but sorry search and destroy really?

Typo.

[Tackhead]

> The 10-gram microflyer, being developed by a team of researchers lead by Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has a 36-centimeter (14-inch) wingspan. But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

Hmm. "Search and rescue". Silly Swiss, neutral, impregnably-defended, makers of great chocolate, but they can't even spell "surveillance" right on a grant application! Sheesh.

But...

[Chris Bradshaw]

But will they taste good?

I can see it now..

[NorbrookC]

search and rescue..

"Well, we're lost. I hope someone is looking for us." (slap) "Damn bugs!"

Re:search and rescue?

[Anonymous Coward]

"sorry sir, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire fleet was swallowed by a small dog."

Yes...

[Wellington Grey]

"Indoor environments are really tough," said Erik Steltz, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley... For example, in order to zip around indoor obstacles -- walls, corners, bookcases, furniture, ceilings, etc. -- a flyer needs to see the objects and have the brain power to steer away.

Is there a different method used when outdoors? I've never been, so I don't know.

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Enlarge it after shrinking?

[dbleoslow]

Unshrink you?! Well that would require some sort of a REbigulator, which is a concept so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh out loud and chortle.. but not at you O holiest of gods with the wrathfulness and the vengence and the bloodrain and the "hey hey hey it hurts me"

Re:Yes...

[he-sk]

Yip, you just go up and up and up and ...

S.W.A.T.

[Bob3141592]

But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

Like everybody else has said, this has "spy on everyone" written all over it, in teeny tiny little letters. And naturally, once this new surveillance method is released onto the public, it will become a criminal offense to destroy one of these drones. And they'll know who just did the destroying too, of course. So the next time you hear that little buzzing sound, and raise your hand to swat at the annoying pest, expect a squad of storm troopers, er, police in full riot gear to arrive in the next moment.

search AND rescue?

[HtR]

The search part I can see, but if I needed to be rescued, I'd prefer they send a helicopter.

You knew this was coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Reporters were left scratching their heads back when The Patriot Act classified the use of sticky flypaper as banned munitions. Now we know why.

Re:Search and rescue?

[mkiwi]

But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

It could also be used to annoy the hell out of your coworkers.

Re:Easier idea

[suv4x4]

"Why build a fancy flight system to be swatted when we could just take a real fly, attach 2 tiny cameras (four if they're small enough, one for each direction) and a little zapper to zap its brain when it goes the wrong direction we want."

If a fly with 4 cameras, a zapper and an antenna flies in, won't you become kinda suspicious?

Max Headroom

[ekc]

My favourite episode of Max Headroom was the one where Bryce spends all of his time trying to perfect a robotic fly to literally bug an enemy compound. After numerous technical setbacks, they send it off on its debut mission. After bobbing around the room a bit, it abruptly gets swatted out of existence, sending poor Bryce into shock.

Now we fast-forward to 2006, and they're testing a robotic fly in a room where the walls are all painted in stripes. Hmm...

Re:search and rescue?

[mr100percent]

Anyone remember the episode of the TV Show Get Smart? Control spends a million dollars building a robotic fly for infiltration and spying, and Max comes in and smashes it with a newspaper.

Re:Search and rescue?

[salec]

..."Lost passengers from recent plane crash in swamp still searched for. Rescue teams blame 'unreliable flying microrobots that often suddenly fail and lose contact with base station' "...

(*snip to "environmental issues" *) ...."More and more frogs and other small insectvore animals in swamp found dead from unexplained internal bleeding"...