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Abstract
Insect-scale aerial vehicles are useful tools for communication, environmental sensing and surveying confined spaces. However, the lack of lightweight high-power-density batteries has limited the untethered flight durations of these micro aerial vehicles. Wireless power transmission using radiofrequency electromagnetic waves could potentially offer transmissivity through obstacles, wave-targeting/focusing capabilities and non-mechanical steering of the vehicles via phased-array antennas. But the use of radiofrequency power transmission has so far been limited to larger vehicles. Here we show that a wireless radiofrequency power supply can be used to drive an insect-scale flapping-wing aerial vehicle. We use a sub-gram radiofrequency power receiver with a power-to-weight density of 4,900 W kg–1, which is five times higher than that of off-the-shelf lithium polymer batteries of similar mass. With this system, we demonstrate the untethered take off of the flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle. Our RF-powered aircraft has a mass of 1.8 g and is more than 25 times lighter than previous radiofrequency-powered micro aerial vehicles.
Highlights
Insect-scale aerial vehicles are useful tools for communication, environmental sensing and surveying confined spaces
To obtain sufficient payload capacity even with the installed electronics, we have improved the lift by reducing the vibration energy loss of the paired-wing configuration, and we have reduced the mass without reducing the lift by downsizing the actuators; this redesign was implemented in a previous report[38], and the approach of the redesign is described in Supplementary Section 4
We have shown that RF power receivers can be used as sustainable power sources for insect-scale robots
Summary
We have shown that RF power receivers can be used as sustainable power sources for insect-scale robots. Our circuit design consists of three dipole antennas/rectifiers to avoid heat concentration, and the high power density was created using a lightweight RF power receiver. We integrated it to an FWMAV38 with a high lift-to-power efficiency. We believe a fully functional untethered MAV with insect-scale mass can be realized by optimizing the vehicle design and adding new features. These include integrating a flight control system in the FWMAV and using a beam-focusing/targeting system for the power transmitter. We note that the developed vehicle has sufficient payload capacity to carry such sensors: the maximum total lift force and payload were 2,620 and 810 mgf, respectively; the typical mass of a commercial inertial measurement unit or communication antenna (such as Bluetooth) is several tens of milligrams only
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