Tokyo — Seiko Epson Corp. is developing a flying robot that looks like a miniature helicopter, and which its makers hope will be used for security, disaster rescue and space exploration.
Dubbed the Micro Flying Robot, the 12.3-gram, 85-millimetre machine, shown to reporters on Wednesday, follows a flight-route program sent from a computer using Bluetooth wireless technology.
On board is a 32-bit microcontroller, a super-thin motor, a digital camera that sends blurry images and a tiny gyro-sensor that weighs less than one-tenth of a gram.
The company said the mini gyro-sensor, a stabilizing device, may be used for digital cameras and camera-equipped cellphones as soon as this year to prevent blurred images.
Looking like a miniature helicopter about the size of a giant bug, a Seiko Epson Corp. robot flies in front of the Japanese electronics maker’s researcher Osamu Miyazawa during a demonstration in Tokyo on Wednesday. (Katsumi Kasahara/AP)
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In Wednesday's demonstration at the company's Tokyo office, the Micro Flying Robot barely managed to get off the ground by a couple of metres and crashed off a table at one point.
The robot can fly just three minutes at a time because of its limited battery life, and its lift was wobbly because of the machine's lack of precision – scarcely better than a windup toy.
Developers, however, say its power relative to its minuscule size makes it a potentially useful tool for rescue and surveillance. A commercial model is being planned in two or three years, they said.
Seiko Epson, whose annual sales total ¥1.4-trillion ($16.6-billion Canadian), refused to disclose the budget for the micro-robot research.
The latest robot is an upgrade of an even smaller flying robot that Seiko Epson showed last year. The company, based in Suwa, makes printers, displays, semiconductors and watches.
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