These small drones inspired by wasps can open a door 40 times their weight and could one day be used in disaster areas.

• Researchers have built tiny microdrones that can open 40 times their weight by opening a door.
• They are inspired by predatory wasps, which can cause large prey on the ground.
• One researcher stated that the technology could be adapted to more complex tasks, such as moving debris or recovering objects in disaster areas.

Researchers constructed microdrones that could open 40% of their weight by opening a door by studying the biology of predatory wasps.

Robotics researchers from Stanford University. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (Switzerland) wanted to find a way to allow tiny microdrones to exercise "energetic tugging"; they turned to biomimetics, which means they were inspired by the natural world.

prey by dragging him to the ground. They used this behavior as a template when creating tiny microdrones, which they named "FlyCroTugs".

Drones are equipped with cables and winches and can attach the cable to an object, then anchor to the ground before starting to wind the cable to themselves.

Thanks to this technology, two FlyCroTugs, each weighing 100 grams, were able to open a door 40 times their mbad.

You can see the microdrones that open the door here:

Part of the design of the FlyCroTug was inspired by another animal. Famous for its hanging on the wall with its sticky feet, the gecko lizard inspired the drones' adhesive.

"The teams of these drones could work cooperatively to perform more complex handling tasks," Stanford researcher Matt Estrada told IEEE Spectrum. dedicated to engineering and applied sciences.

"We have demonstrated the opening of a door, but this approach could be extended to the rotation of a ball valve, to the removal of a debris or to the recovery of an object of interest in a disaster area. "

There are still some hurdles to overcome before you can use the tiny UAVs on the ground. For the moment, their battery lasts only five minutes. The FlyCroTug also needs a pilot to fly it because researchers have not yet developed a detection system or artificial intelligence for it.

You can read the complete document on the construction of the FlyCroTug drone here.

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