After the solar powered unmanned aerial spay plane which took solar energy to extreme heights, the U.S Army has awarded the University of Michigan’s college of engineering a five year, grant of 10 million dollars to make a robotic spy plane. What is so special about this robotic plane is that it is modeled after a bat and measures just 6 inches. This Robotic spy plane takes micro engineering to new heights by running on a combination of solar, wind and guess what, even vibrations to recharge it’s lithium battery. The U.S Army is very serious about his project and in addition to establishing the U-M center for objective microelectronics and biomimetic advanced technology, in short called COM-BAT, it also plans to extend the grant period by 5 years and infuse 12.5 million more. This Miniature spy plane will gather smells and sounds from battlefields and feed it to the U.S army. It does all this with a sensitive navigation system which has a miniature radar.
The robotic spy plane aims to be like a real bat and use all the renewable natural resources and like the bat, it can see and function in the dark using some advanced sensors which the U.S army will not let be publicly known for Security Reasons. Finally, renewable energy is making it’s prescence felt even in the world’s battlefields. Maybe we will have commercial aircrafts powered like this miniature robotic spyplane someday. The possibilities are endless.
Source: Ecofriend
