Harvard Microrobotics Lab / Wyss Institute (USA) Harvard RoboBee / RoboBee X-Wing (1)

Not soldAcademic research platform.

Not for sale (research)Not programmableInsect-scalePiezo 'muscles'80 mg

Not soldShipping: Not sold. Not available; a university research project.

Remote control: Not possible. A lab platform controlled through its tether and lab rigs.

Wyss Institute ↗Wikipedia ↗X-Wing (2019) ↗

Overview

The smallest flying robot of its era. It made its first controlled flight in 2012 and was published in Science in May 2013, made possible by pop-up MEMS folding fabrication and piezoelectric wing actuators. Later variants perched with electrostatic adhesion and switched between swimming and flying. The four-winged RoboBee X-Wing (2019) became the lightest vehicle to achieve sustained untethered flight, powered by solar cells under lab lights.

Specifications

Category	Flapping-wing fliers · Flapping-wing robots
Released	2013
Availability	Not for sale (research)
Programmability	No programmability
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	No vision sensors
Actuators	Other
Audio	No audio
Compute type	Laptop / PC as the brain
Remote control	Not programmable
Size	~3 cm wingspan, ~80 mg (original); X-Wing with solar cells 259 mg
Locomotion	Two (X-Wing: four) wings flapping ~120 times/s via piezoelectric actuators
Compute	Off-board (tethered control); X-Wing carries only power-conversion electronics
Camera	None on board
Sensors	Off-board motion capture for control
Runtime	Tethered; X-Wing flies only under intense halogen light (~3 suns)
Speed	Not published
SDK	None