Robotic Hummingbird With a Camera
The hummingbird is a small, nut unique bird – its wings can move extremely fast, it can fly backwards and they can hover in mid-air. Now a Japanese researcher has Hiroshi Liu who works at the Chiba University just outside Tokyo has made a robotic hummingbird, very much like the real-life version, at least a robotic imitation of it.
He plans to equip this with a micro camera which will come in use to see things in places human being cannot reach. Say if there is a building collapse or a mine collapse, the robotic hummingbird can go through small crevices and via its camera ‘sight’ survivors. Possibly it may be used even to hunt down criminals.
Already $2 million has been spent on the research and development of this robotic bird. The bird can be remote controlled via infrared. Who knows, once it reaches the manufacturing stage, it may even find some use as a spy gadget.