Winged flight, or simply fly-by-wire? (Image: South West News Service / Rex Features)
CREATING a free-flying robotic insect is the dearest wish of many an engineer because such a machine would have great potential in surveillance and in seeking out trapped people in search-and-rescue situations. But a curious effect might upset their plans.
Last year, a team at Harvard University released a video demonstration of a robotic fly they had developed, showing it flapping its wings and levitating up a pair of guide wires.
But Michele Milano of Arizona State University in Tempe wondered whether the wing motion was entirely…
