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Keyword: robotbees

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  • NASA Has a Plan to Put Robot Bees on Mars

    04/05/2018 9:51:58 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 17 replies
    space.com ^ | April 5, 2018 10:54am ET | Rafi Letzter, Live Science Staff Writer |
    It's in its early stages, but the idea is to replace modern rovers — which are slow, bulky and very expensive — with swarms of sensor-studded, fast-moving micro-bots that can cover much more ground at a relatively low cost. Literally called Marsbees, the little bots are "flapping wing flyers of a bumblebee size with cicada-sized wings," NASA officials wrote. The planet has just one-third of Earth's gravitational pull, offering the Marsbees an advantage despite the thin atmosphere. Flapping-wing bots are pretty uncommon on Earth, the NASA statement noted, because rotary-wing bots like quadcopters are much more popular. But the flapping-wing design allows the team...
  • As bee populations dwindle, robot bees may pick up some of their pollination slack

    02/09/2017 2:21:55 PM PST · by BenLurkin · 26 replies
    l a times ^ | 01/09/2017 | Amina Khan
    Scientists in Japan say they’ve managed to turn an unassuming drone into a remote-controlled pollinator by attaching horsehairs coated with a special, sticky gel to its underbelly. The system, described in the journal Chem, is nowhere near ready to be sent to agricultural fields, but it could help pave the way to developing automated pollination techniques at a time when bee colonies are suffering precipitous declines. ... Scientists have thought about using drones, but scientists haven’t figured out how to make free-flying robot insects that can rely on their own power source without being attached to a wire. “It’s very...