It’s neither a bird nor a plane, but a winged microchip as small as a grain of sand…

View Comments (3)

The tiny microfliers…are being billed as the smallest-ever human-made flying structures…

The devices don’t have a motor; engineers were…inspired by the maple tree’s free-falling propeller seeds…[E]ngineers optimized the aerodynamics…so that “as these structures fall through the air, the interaction between the air and those wings cause a rotational motion that creates a very stable, slow-falling velocity,” said John A. Rogers, who led…development of the devices.

“That allows these structures to interact for extended periods with ambient wind that…enhances the dispersal process,” said the…professor…

The wind would scatter the tiny microchips, which could sense their surrounding environments and collect information. The scientists say they could potentially be used to monitor for contamination, surveil populations or even track diseases…

But unlike with maple seeds, the engineers needed to slow down the descent of their microfliers to give the devices more time to collect data. Team member Yonggang Huang developed a computer model that calculated the best design that would enable the microfliers to fall slowly and disperse widely…

“We think that we beat nature,” Rogers said. “At least in the…sense that we have…buil[t] structures that fall with more stable trajectories and at slower terminal velocities than equivalent seeds…”

What are your thoughts about increasing surveillance capabilities? Share your thoughts and prayers in the comments below!

(Excerpt from NPR. Article by Scott Neuman. Photo Credit: Waldemar Brandt).