These fold-up robots fly just like ladybugs
Researchers created a ladybug-like robot whose wing snap open in milliseconds, just like its insect inspiration. (Pexels/)When a ladybug takes flight, its wings spring open within a tenth of a second—faster than a blink of an eye. And once unfurled, those wings remain open, allowing them to flap quickly without risk of folding or buckling.These properties make the colorful little beetles a great source of inspiration for flying robots, says Kyu-Jin Cho, the director of the Soft Robotics Research Center at Seoul National University in South Korea. He and his colleagues have built robots that fly using a pair of wings that snap open and lock much like those of real ladybugs.“We are trying to mimic the fundamental principle behind creating those motions,” says Cho, who described his work this week in the journal Science Robotics.The wings his group designed are sturdy in flight, yet can be folded up like...