Photo credit: Michael Miller
At the University of Cincinnati, a small lab is humming with the faint whir of tiny fabric wings cutting through the air. Inside, a coffee cup-sized drone, called Flapper, takes to the air, its four tiny legs a whirlwind. There are no big rotating fans chomping through the battery or onboard computer frantically crunching numbers – it’s just a basic computer that flies. Researchers have spent years monitoring moths darting through gusts and floating in mid-air, and their findings will help revolutionize the way we construct anything that can fly.
The drone they built starts with those wings. Four of them, each a simple wire frame wrapped in super lightweight cloth, moving way too fast to be seen. Lift comes with each stroke, up and down, just like a hummingbird as it sips nectar from flowers in twilight. Students Ahmed Elgohary and Rohan Palanikumar have rigged them up behind a soft netting screen – the kind that catches the odd crash before its too late. Palanikumar is holding the remote but even he admits the real magic happens when the machine takes over. With a flick and the drone is up, hovering just a mite – like a bumblebee or dragonfly standing firm in a breeze.
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Flapper isn’t powered by some sort of hidden supercomputer – as Elgohary describes it – it’s extremum-seeking control. Broken down, it all just makes sense: the drone is constantly checking how close it is to its destination, much like that one light source you move slowly round a room. It adjusts the wingbeats – faster here slower there – and checks the results. A little wobble runs through the frame – not a fault, just the drone poking around the air to see what works best. Its real time feedback – no maps, no complex computing necessary. Roll a bit to the left to stay level, pitch forward to close the gap and yaw a bit to keep from drifting.
Drones these days guzzle battery power, and their four screaming fans reduce flight times to just minutes. Scale them down for spying or search missions, and the drain becomes a dealbreaker. Moths sidestep this entirely – they flap with purpose, not brute force. Eisa’s team saw the similarity and went with it. Their creation weighs nothing, sips energy and wont choke trying to find a home. Imagine surveillance in city alleys or disaster zones – these tools that can just sit there and observe without anyone noticing.
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