No batteries or electrical cords necessary for this flying robot. A team at the University of California, Berkeley, has developed a teeny-tiny drone that only needs magnets in order to fly. The prototype device is composed of a 3D-printed propeller and four blades encircled by a ring for balance. Add to that two tiny magnets and that’s it, you’ve got the whole thing. It weighs in at just 21 milligrams and has a wingspan of only 9.4 millimeters.
The device flies when exposed to an external alternating magnetic field, causing it to spin and lift off. It can stay airborne with a magnetic field strength of at least 3.1 millitesla (the average refrigerator magnet has a strength of about 10 millitesla). Alternating the frequency of the magnetic field causes the drone to accelerate or decelerate and allows the team to steer it.
Right now it can only fly about 10 centimeters away from the external magnets that power it, but the team already has ideas on how to increase that range. “It could be possible to drive micro flying robots using electromagnetic waves such as those in radio or cellphone transmission signals,” noted Liwei Lin, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
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