MIT, EPFL Build 250-g Robot That Flies and Swims on 1 Set of Flapping Wings
Updated
Updated · New Atlas · Jul 14
MIT, EPFL Build 250-g Robot That Flies and Swims on 1 Set of Flapping Wings
3 articles · Updated · New Atlas · Jul 14
Summary
A 250-g robot from MIT and EPFL became the first bird-scale machine to swim, dive, launch from water and fly using flapping wings alone, with no propellers, legs or folding parts.
Water’s roughly 800-times higher density than air forced the key design choices: flexible wings that bend up to 90% underwater, flapping at 0.1-6 Hz in water and up to 11 Hz in air, plus neutral buoyancy to save battery power.
The hardest step is the water-to-air exit, which the robot completes in under 1 second with 8-10 wingbeats, but only when wing stiffness, a short tail and an exit angle near 70 degrees are tightly tuned.
Tests also suggest flying becomes more energy-efficient than swimming beyond about 15.5 meters, while the robot offers a controllable model for studying how real diving birds transition between water and air.
The Science study says the roughly $300 open-source design is not yet autonomous, but researchers aim to add navigation, salt-water performance and longer endurance for low-cost environmental monitoring.