---
title: "Tiny Spies: This Insect-Like Flying Robot is Smaller Than a Penny"
description: "A team of engineers built a four-winged flying robot called Bee+ that weighs just 95 grams with a footprint smaller than a penny."
date: "2019-05-15"
modified: "2019-05-15"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/tiny-insect-drone-robot-four-wings"
categories:
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "flying"
  - "robotics"
  - "tiny robot"
---

# Tiny Spies: This Insect-Like Flying Robot is Smaller Than a Penny

![A team of engineers built a four-winged flying robot called Bee+ that weighs just 95 grams with a footprint smaller than a penny.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/tiny-insect-drone-robot-four-wings.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Xiufeng Yang et al./Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Tiny Dancer

A team of engineers from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles built a four-winged flying robot called Bee+, which weighs just 95 grams and sports a footprint smaller than a penny.

\[embed\]https://www.uscamsl.com/resources/IROS2019/S1.mp4[/embed\]

Harvard researchers [built another](<https://futurism.com/meet-worlds-smallest-robot-size-fly-capable-flight>) tiny flying robot, called RoboBee, in 2013. It weighed only 75 grams.

But RoboBee featured just two wings, which made its flight far erratic and uncontrolled. Four wings gives Bee+ a way to control pitch and its orientation in space.

## Four \> Two

The biggest challenge the Bee+ team faced to bring the number of wings up to four was the weight of the actuators responsible for making them flap. The researchers came up with a new "unimorph" design that relies on a single strip of piezoelectric material that expands and contracts when a current is sent through it, cutting the weight of the four actuators roughly in half.

"The proposed approach has numerous advantages in terms of weight, dimensions, aerodynamics, control and fabrication," the team [told *MIT Technology Review*](<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613528/a-tiny-four-winged-robotic-insect-flies-more-like-the-real-thing/>).

A [preprint of their research](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.02253>) was published to the preprint repository *arXiv*.

There's one huge shortcoming of both the RoboBee and the Bee+: they're technically not drones, as they rely on a tether for an energy source. But once battery technology catches up with nanoscale robotics, the Bee+ could one day take flight all on its own.

**READ MORE:** [A tiny four-winged robotic insect flies more like the real thing](<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613528/a-tiny-four-winged-robotic-insect-flies-more-like-the-real-thing/>) \[*MIT Technology Review*\]

**More on tiny robots:** *[Watch an Adorably Tiny Robot Go for a Teeny Run](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-tiniest-legs-run>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)