July 28, 2008 How often have you thought, “I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that room”. Well, a team at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is hard at work trying to make that desire a reality by developing a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), which they claim is the smallest flying, camera carrying ornithopter in the world. The DelFly Micro weighs just 3 grams and measures 10 cm from wing tip to wing tip. It has a range of 50 meters and is powered by a 30 mAh lithium polymer battery, which provides enough power for three minutes of fight time. To keep the weight of the unit down the wings are made from Mylar foil, while the body and frame is made up from carbon and balsawood.
Produced through the University’s DelFly Project the DelFly Micro improves on the original DelFly I, which had a size of 50 cm, and the DelFly II, which had a size of 28 cm, by bringing together knowledge from fields such as aerodynamics, mechanics, electronics, and camera technology, while the inclusion of the camera allows experimentation with new ideas from fields such as computer vision and artificial intelligence. The goal of the project is to keep reducing the size of the DelFly, while always ensuring flying performance and an on-board camera, with the ultimate goal of achieving flight without the intervention of a pilot. Might not be long before you can find out what those co-workers really think of you.
For further info visit the DelFly website.
