Monolithic fabrication of an insect‐scale self‐lifting flapping‐wing robot

Abstract

Robots on the order of insect-scale are difficult to manufacture using MEMS technologies for sub-millimetre structures or conventional methods for large devices beyond centimetres. This work presents an electromagnetically driven, monolithically fabricated, insect-scale self-lifting flapping-wing robot for the first time. This robot is created using a simple monolithic method, by which most of the components are integrated and fabricated from a single sheet. Finally, the monolithic insect-scale flapping-wing robot can generate sufficient lift to take off.