Harvard University's robotic bees have come a long way since they were first designed in 2012. A year after the first RoboBees took flight and successfully landed, researchers programmed them to follow a pre-established route. Earlier this year, the robot bees were enabled to swim by applying a slick solution to their wings and slowing the frequency that they beat their wings. The next step is giving them the power to see.

The ultimate goal for these insectoid machines is to assist with pollination in agriculture and even help locate people who need help in disaster situations. Bees are mysteriously dying off at an alarming rate, so in true Million-Dollar-Man fashion, scientists have decided to build a better bee. Now that we have a design that can fly and swim around, we need to give them eyes.

Harvard University

Two other universities are getting involved to help develop a system that will allow the RoboBees to navigate. The University of Buffalo and the University of Florida have received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to cover three years of R&D to create a navigation system for the RoboBees using lidar laser imaging.

Using conventional cameras to allow the bees to navigate would be difficult if not impossible. You would need two cameras spaced a minimum distance apart to allow for depth perception (just like your eyes), and there simply isn't enough space on the tiny robot bees, not to mention weight concerns. A light-based navigation system is much more realistic.

Lidar, short for "light detection and ranging," works the same way that radar and sonar work, but it uses laser beams rather than microwaves or sound waves to create a picture. Lidar systems emit invisible beams of light out into the environment, and then sensors determine the distance and shape of objects by calculating the time it takes for the light waves to bounce back.

"it's the same technology that automakers are using to ensure that driverless cars don't crash into things."

"Essentially, it's the same technology that automakers are using to ensure that driverless cars don't crash into things," says Karthik Dantu, a University at Buffalo computer scientist. "Only we need to shrink that technology so it works on robot bees that are no bigger than a penny."

Weight is certainly a problem, considering that the RoboBees weigh a puny 80 milligrams and the smallest lidar systems are somewhere around 800 grams. Power is an issue too, as 97 percent of the RoboBee's power resources are required for flight, according to Smithsonian.

But that's what the $1.1 million grant is for. Dantu is writing an algorithm to enable a lidar system to most efficiently use the data it receives, while Sanjeev Koppal and Huikai Xie at the University of Florida are working to shrink the hardware. The first prototypes will require a tether to a power source, but the team hopes to eventually build an internally powered bee with "micro-lidar" navigation.

Of course, this type of technology could have significantly more applications than search and rescue operations and pollinating crops. If the data could be transmitted back to a central hub for processing, swarms of RoboBees could hypothetically be used to create 3D topographic maps or accurate scans of building architecture.

For now, the researchers are just trying to get a micro-lidar system up and running. Perhaps in the future, we'll use robot bugs to do our bidding while we eat the real ones.

Source: University of Buffalo via Smithsonian

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