"RoboBees" that can now hover on their own like real bees will later be able to fly where they want to; land where they want to and eventually pollinate plants. They can also be used in reconnaissance and can assist in remote communication.

These aerial microrobots have a range of features that will one day soon enable autonomous flight. The goal of the RoboBee project funded by the U.S. government's National Science Foundation (NSF) is to create autonomous robotic insects capable of sustained, independent flight without being tethered to a power source.

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The RoboBee is about the same size as a real bee and weighs only 84 milligrams, which is lighter than a real bee. The first controlled flight of a RoboBee took place in 2012. Last April, the team demonstrated the RoboBee can perch during flight to save energy, as bats, birds and butterflies do.

Today, researchers are working on RoboBees that can sense their environment using lasers.

More important, this flying marvel represents a model of successful interdisciplinary collaboration. Experts from neurobiology, evolutionary biology, materials science, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and bioengineering all worked together towards a common vision, with results that would be difficult to achieve with a smaller group.

The project is being implemented by a research team from Harvard University and Northeastern University. The team was inspired by nature, more specifically the incredible ability of small insects to self-launch, navigate and perform agile actions despite their small bodies.

"Bees and other social insects provide a fascinating model for engineered systems that can maneuver in unstructured environments, sense their surroundings, communicate and perform complex tasks as a collective full of relatively simple individuals," said Robert Wood, professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University and principal investigator of the RoboBee project.

"The RoboBees project grew out of this inspiration and has developed solutions to numerous fundamental challenges -- challenges that are motivated by the small scale of the individual and large scale of the collective."

Wood estimates it will take another five to 10 years before the RoboBee might be ready for use in the real world.

In developing the RoboBee, the team advanced basic research in a number of areas where they saw obstacles to realizing their vision: from micro-manufacturing methods and materials for actuation, to small-scale energy storage and algorithms to effectively control individuals and coordinated swarms of robots.

The group's research led to breakthroughs in each of these areas.

Highlights include new methods for manufacturing millimeter-scale devices based on lamination and folding; new sensors applicable to low-power and mobile computing applications; architectures for ultra-low power computing; and coordination.

TagsRoboBee, National Science Foundation, Robert Wood