Overview
Started as a 2005 student project, the DelFly line produced the camera-carrying DelFly II (2007), the 3-gram DelFly Micro (2008, Guinness record as the smallest camera-carrying aircraft), the stereo-vision DelFly Explorer (2013) for autonomous obstacle avoidance, and the tailless DelFly Nimble (2018), which steers by changing its wing motion like an insect. The Nimble was used to study fruit-fly escape manoeuvres and spun off Flapper Drones in 2019.
- Type
- Flapping-wing robot · Flapping-wing robots
- Maker
- TU Delft MAVLab (Netherlands)
- Released
- 2007
- Price
- Not for sale
- Status
- Not for sale (research)
- Best for
- Professionals & labs
- Programming
- No programmability
Price and shipping
Research series. The commercial descendant is the Flapper Nimble+.
Shipping: Not for sale. Not for sale. See Flapper Nimble+ for the commercial version.
Specifications
| Category | Flapping-wing fliers · Flapping-wing robots |
|---|---|
| Released | 2007 |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Availability | Not for sale (research) |
| Programmability | No programmability |
| Built-in autonomy | Reactive · Responds to its surroundings without a map, such as avoiding obstacles or following a person |
| LLM support | None · No built-in LLM and no SDK to connect one. |
| Best for | Professionals & labs |
| Vision sensors | Camera, Depth camera |
| Actuators | Unknown |
| Audio | No audio |
| Compute type | Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller, Laptop / PC as the brain |
| Remote control | Not programmable |
| Size | DelFly II: 28 cm, 16 g, Micro: 10 cm, 3.07 g, Explorer: 28 cm, 20 g |
| Locomotion | Clap-and-fling flapping wings, tail-stabilized (II/Micro/Explorer) or tailless with active wing steering (Nimble) |
| Compute | DelFly II: mostly off-board, Explorer: on-board stereo-vision processing |
| Camera | Video camera (II/Micro), stereo camera (Explorer) |
| Sensors | Varies by version (gyros on Nimble) |
| Runtime | DelFly II ~15 min, Micro 2–3 min |
| Speed | DelFly II up to 7 m/s, Nimble up to 7 m/s |
| SDK | None public |
Common questions
How much does DelFly cost?
Not for sale. Research series. The commercial descendant is the Flapper Nimble+.
Can DelFly be bought today?
No. It was never sold to the public.
Who makes DelFly?
DelFly is made by TU Delft MAVLab (Netherlands). It came out in 2007.
Can DelFly be programmed?
No programmability.
Does DelFly have AI chat or LLM support?
None. No built-in LLM and no SDK to connect one.
Ratings & reviews
Ratings and reviews load on the live site.
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