Photo credit: Michael Miller
At the University of Cincinnati, a small lab is humming with the faint whir of tiny fabric wings cutting through the air. Inside, a coffee cup-sized drone, called Flapper, takes to the air, its four tiny legs a whirlwind. There are no big rotating fans chomping through the battery or onboard computer frantically crunching numbers – it’s just a basic computer that flies. Researchers have spent years monitoring moths darting through gusts and floating in mid-air, and their findings will help revolutionize the way we construct anything that can fly.