Harvard's Robotic Bees Generate High-Tech Buzz 105
coondoggie writes "Harvard researchers recently got a $10 million grant to create a colony of flying robotic bees, or RoboBees, to (among other things) spur innovation in ultra-low-power computing and electronic 'smart' sensors; and refine coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines. The 5-year, National Science Foundation-funded RoboBee project could lead to a better understanding of how to mimic artificially the unique collective behavior and intelligence of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site."
Re:Military applications? (Score:3, Insightful)
How much explosive power can you pack into a bee-sized missile? I doubt being able to set off firecrackers would qualify as military firepower.
Re:Missing an important benefit (Score:3, Insightful)
All that efficient low power electronics is nice and good. But if you're going to have a robot bee fly for more than say 15 minutes, you are going to need better batteries, or really tiny fuel cells, or a really strong wind/tornado
When you look at that scale we are so far behind. Bees (or even tiny fruit flies) can fly about, navigate, avoid threats, find food, gracefully deal with minor damage and not least of all they don't run out of power that quickly while doing all of that.
As for mimicking colony behaviours and developing algorithms, there's no need to build robots for that. You can do it all in computers. If you haven't managed to simulate artificial bees well in computers, having a robot bee hardly helps.