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Spying Bats The Latest Drone Technology
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No doubt you have all heard of spy drones. They made an appearance or two in Iraq that were publicized and probably many others that weren’t. Now meet the latest in the drone arsenal, the Spy Bat. A six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time.
Lucky engineers at the University of Michigan College of Engineering are charged with designing the sensors for this stealth bat. The director of the project, Kamal Sarabandi says, “Bats have a highly-attuned echolocation sense providing high-resolution navigation and sensing ability even in the dark, just as our sensor must be able to do.”
The engineering team expects many industrial and medical spin-offs from this project. I would imagine law enforcement might also be taking an interest in the Spy Bat.
Echolocation allows real bats to navigate by emitting sounds and detecting the echoes.
The bat robot’s body would be about six inches long. It would weigh about a quarter of a pound and use about 1 W of power.
U-M researchers intend to improve on current technologies. They’ll work to develop quantum dot solar cells that double the efficiency of current cells. They expect their autonomous navigation system, which would allow the robot to direct its own movements, to be 1,000 times smaller and more energy efficient than systems being used now. They believe they can deliver a communication system that’s 10 times smaller, lighter and more energy efficient than today’s technologies.
The bat would be designed to perform short-term surveillance in support of advancing soldiers. Or it could perch at a street corner or building for longer assignments and send back reports of activity as it takes place.
“Throughout this research, we expect to make technological breakthroughs and have a much wider range of applications for other types of engineering problems, from medical to industrial,” Sarabandi said.
