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NASA wants to send flying swarms of robot 'bees' to explore Mars

Apr 5, 2018, 21:28 IST

This image provided by NASA shows the plant MarsNASA via AP

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  • NASA commissioned a team of scientists to develop bio-inspired 'bees' to explore Mars.
  • The tiny drones will have bumblebee shaped bodies and wings inspired by cicadas, the optimal shape for generating lift in the Martian atmosphere.
  • The 'Marsbees' have a number of advantages over traditional, rotary-powered drones.

Move over, Elon Musk. Future exploration of Mars may not be carried out by humans at all if a team of researchers has their way.

Engineers are developing swarms of robotic 'bees' that can hover above the Martian surface, collecting data and communicating with a mobile exploration base. It's bio-inspired engineering at its finest.

NASA commissioned a team at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, working in conjunction with a team of Japanese scientists, to develop the flying, micro-sized robots.

Here's how they'd work, according to NASA: The Marsbees would be launched by a rover, acting as a sort of mobile base and recharging station. Inspired by insects, the robot 'bees' would have bodies shaped like bumblebees, with wing structures reminiscent of cicadas.

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A depiction of how the Marsbee swarm would work.NASA

The bees would be able to fly by flapping their wings, generating enough lift to hover in the Martian atmosphere. There are a few specific advantages to using flapping, insectoid robots over traditional rotary-powered drones, according to NASA.

First, the robots would make for a much lighter payload, giving scientists the ability to deploy more robots to Mars for data collection. Second, the bees would function in mini-swarms, meaning if one gets destroyed, it's not a huge loss.

While the Marsbees are promising, they're still years away from being deployed on research missions.

There are only a few flapping drones that can actually fly in Earth's atmosphere (a hummingbird drone developed by the Japanese team) and NASA's robot bees are still in Phase I - the very early stages of design.

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The future of space exploration, however, could belong to the (robot) insects.

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