Not for saleAcademic research platform, never sold (October 2026 check). Year from the 2018 IEEE ICRA paper and UW announcement.
Not for sale (research)Not programmableInsect-scaleLaser-powered190 mg
Not for saleShipping: Not for sale. Not available. A university research project.
Remote control: Not possible. A lab robot powered by a laser and controlled by lab equipment.
Overview
The first insect-sized flying robot to take off without a wire, in 2018. A laser beam lights a small solar cell on top, and an onboard circuit boosts its 7 volts to the 240 volts the piezo wing muscles need, while a tiny microcontroller times the wing beats. It could only take off and land, since it drops as soon as it leaves the beam. A simplified 74 mg version (2020) can also walk on the ground and skim across water using its wings. Led by Sawyer Fuller, a co-author of the Harvard RoboBee flight paper, it is the University of Washington's answer to the same problem.
Specifications
| Category | Flapping-wing fliers · Flapping-wing robots |
|---|---|
| Released | 2018 |
| Country | USA |
| Availability | Not for sale (research) |
| Programmability | No programmability |
| Built-in autonomy | None / scripted · Moves only when controlled, or plays preset motions |
| LLM support | None · No built-in LLM and no SDK to connect one. |
| Best for | Professionals & labs |
| Vision sensors | No vision sensors |
| Actuators | Other |
| Audio | No audio |
| Compute type | Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller |
| Remote control | Not programmable |
| Size | Slightly larger than a housefly, 190 mg (laser-powered 2018 version), 74 mg (2020 simplified version with 13 mm wings) |
| Locomotion | Two flapping wings driven by piezoelectric actuators (about 140 flaps per second when hovering in the 2020 version) |
| Compute | Onboard microcontroller on a flexible circuit that times the wing pulses (2018 wireless version). The 2020 version is driven from a desktop computer through wires |
| Camera | None on board |
| Sensors | None on board. Lab motion-capture cameras for flight control in the 2020 version |
| Runtime | Only while lit by the laser. It lands as soon as the photovoltaic cell leaves the beam |
| Speed | Not published (water-surface travel about 0.5 cm/s in the 2020 version) |
| SDK | None |
Ratings & reviews
Ratings and reviews load on the live site.
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