Engineers and scientists are drawing inspiration from nature to develop new technologies more often than ever before. This holds true even for the smallest flying structures humans have ever built.
Researchers were inspired by the way that maple trees disperse seeds with a stiff breeze. They developed a range microchips that fly tiny, barely larger than a grain.
The microflier, also known as a flying microchip, catches wind and spins to the ground like a helicopter.
A team from Northwestern University, Illinois designed the microfliers. They can be packed with ultra-miniaturized technology such as sensors, power sources and antennas for wireless communication.
John A. Rogers from Northwestern, who was responsible for the design of the new device, stated that "our goal was to add winged flying to small-scale electronics systems with the idea that this capabilities would allow us distribute highly functional electronic devices to sense and track the environment for contamination monitoring or population surveillance."
Engineers wanted devices that could stay in the air as long as possible to maximize data collection.
The microflier's wings interact with the air and create a steady, slow rotational motion when it falls through the air.
(Northwestern University).
"We believe we have beat nature." Rogers says that in the narrowest sense Rogers has been able to create structures with more stable trajectories, at slower terminal speeds than comparable seeds from plants or trees.
"We were also able to construct these helicopter flying structures at sizes that are smaller than those found naturally."
Rogers thinks these devices could be dropped from the skies in large numbers and dispersed for monitoring environmental remediation efforts following an oil spill or to track levels at different altitudes of air pollution.
Rogers and his colleagues don't lose sight of the irony of trying to reduce the effects of one environmental pollutant while potentially creating another. These concerns are expressed in the paper that describes their research.
It is important to consider the best methods of disposal and recovery. These issues can be avoided by using devices made from materials that naturally absorb into the environment through chemical reactions and/or physical destruction to benign end products.
Top of larger microflier equipped with an antenna coil and sensors for detecting ultraviolet rays. (Northwestern University).
Rogers' laboratory develops transient electronics capable of dissolving into water once they have been used up. Rogers and his team are working with similar materials to create fliers that can degrade and disappear over time in groundwater.
Rogers says, "We manufacture such physically transient electronics systems with degradable polymers and compostable conductors that naturally vanish into environment-friendly end products when exposed to the water."
"We are aware that large numbers of microflys can be difficult to recover. These environmentally resorbable microflies are harmless and can be recovered easily.
The journal Nature published the research.
