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The reason it's so hard to kill a mosquito is that they move really well. Scientists are trying to build a robot with that kind of agility. And these tiny but mighty flying robots could be used in life-and-death situations, such as finding people in a collapsed building. Kevin Chen says he spends "a lot of time looking at the flapping-wing physics, that is understanding how an insect can flap their wings and generate lift and drag forces." Chen, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leads a team that's invented a new microdrone — not quite as...

Scientists in the US have created a robot the size of a fly that is able to perform the agile manoeuvres of the ubiquitous insects. This "robo-fly", built from carbon fibre, weighs a fraction of a gram and has super-fast electronic "muscles" to power its wings. Its Harvard University developers say tiny robots like theirs may eventually be used in rescue operations. The current model of robo-fly is tethered to a small, off-board power source but Dr Ma says the next step will be to miniaturise the other bits of technology that will be needed to create a "fully wireless...

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio — Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds. The base’s indoor flight lab is called the “microaviary,” and for good reason. The drones in development here are designed to replicate the flight mechanics of moths, hawks and other inhabitants of the natural world. “We’re looking at how you hide in plain sight,”...

'Microdrone', the police's tiny eye in the sky By Tom Chivers and agencies Last Updated: 2:14am GMT 08/03/2008 In size and appearance it may resemble a toy - and the fact that it can squirt a jet of water on to unsuspecting people's heads may add to that impression - but this is in fact a £25,000 hi-tech crime-fighting machine. A remote-controlled and almost silent miniature helicopter, the "Microdrone" can act as a police commander's eye in the sky, capturing images with both a video and an infra-red camera and instantly transmitting it to operators on the ground up to...