Robo Firefly on hand

The Robo Firefly – Flaps Wings to Fly

The Robo Firefly is a nature-inspired robot that can fly by flapping its wings compared to traditional drones which are powered by propellers. Robo Firefly is built by Leuven MindGate member and tech start-up Hummingdrones, located at the Vaartkom in Leuven, Belgium. As per their blog, they want to inspire each and everyone towards the wonders of science and technology by “building small robots that appeal to everyone’s imagination“.

Development of the Robo Firefly took less than a decade; 9 years to be precise and was built at the University of Leuven.

The Robo Firefly has a total wingspan of 150 mm. As per their blog, it is the FIRST robot on the market that can fly by mimicking the insect flight pattern i.e, using the high-frequency flapping wing motion. The drone can reach up to to 100 meters from the controller at up to 20 kph for up to six minutes. It connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth and can recharge in 15 minutes using Micro-USB.

The robot was named ‘Firefly’ because of its strobe of light to visualise the aesthetically pleasing wing motion. It doesn’t have any camera yet.

Robo Firefly on desk

The tech startup was funded in Indiegogo and generated ₹592,975. As per their given timeline assembly of Robo Fireflies will start from February 2020 and shipping of the first batch starts from June.

Sources:

  1. https://www.leuvenmindgate.be/news/belgian-tech-start-up-launches-first-ever-drone-with-flapping-wings-meet-the-robo-firefly
  2. https://www.therobotreport.com/robo-firefly-drone-small-efficiency-crowdfunding-wait/

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