MIT built a 300-gram robot that flies through the sky, dives underwater and takes off again
Researchers from MIT and EPFL have developed a 300-gram flapping-wing robot inspired by the Atlantic puffin that can transition seamlessly between flight and underwater swimming. By utilizing flexible wings rather than complex mechanical joints, the robot achieves efficient movement in both air and water.
Why it matters
This breakthrough in biomimetic robotics offers a new, lightweight solution for environmental monitoring and ocean exploration that avoids the weight and complexity of traditional multi-propeller systems.
Nature has given us amphibians in various forms, from frogs to other multi-environment creatures, yet few things transcend the different domains of Earth as remarkably as the diving birds that inspired the MIT and EPFL researchers. For so long, scientists have long dreamt of a machine that can fly through the clouds like a bird, swim into the depths of the ocean, and then back into the sky, seamlessly. Water diving birds like the ‘Atlantic puffin’ glide effortlessly between the air and the ocean, despite the two environments having different physical properties. Now a team of engineers from MIT and Swiss Federal Institute of technology (EPFL) has finally created a lightweight, winged robot that possesses this biological ability, showing that the same wings can navigate through both worlds.
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