Robobee (Robotic Bee) is a Micro Air Vehicle inspired by the biology of a bee. It is on the development phase for past five years, and Harvard researchers have managed to make them fly under their own strength. But, they couldn’t really take off the robot to where they want. The researchers have been working hard with various solutions to eliminate it.

Meanwhile, Benjamin M. Finio and Robert J. Wood of Harvard University have recently presented “Open-loop roll, pitch and yaw torques for a robotic bee” at IEEE/RSJ 2012 in Portugal.

This tiny robot is incorporated with two small control actuators below the wings in order to provide the capability to pitch and roll. Even though, Robobee is still crashing after they take off. As a result, the research team is currently working to include yaw with pitch and roll to get a perfect output. A feedback controller will be developed to activate the yaw axis, so that the robot could fly with full control.

According to the researchers, Robobees will be a best tool in search and rescue, traffic monitoring, military surveillance, autonomously pollinating a field of crops, hazardous environment exploration, and high resolution weather and climate mapping.

Overall, it is a great idea from Harvard researchers, and I am very much excited to have a look on its fully controllable flight. Let us hope for the best to happen in the near future, and Robobees will soon be flying in our way.

Catch the various performances of Harvard’s Robobees using pitch and roll in the below video: