Dragonfly Micro Air Vehicles - 16 grams and falling

Posted on 18/11/2007 by wcox in Military

del_fly_ii_closeup.jpgThe world for terrorists and evil-doers just keeps getting scaier and scaier. First it was Predator drones with helfire missiles , then it was PackBots that can fire at 1,000,000 rounds/minute (more on this later), and now it's tiny flying vehicles with on-board cameras. Oh, did I mention they're tiny? The WIRED: Danger Room reports that a group from the Netherlands, the Delft University of Technology, has created these tiny insectocopters with a 25cm wingspan, and are currently working on making them even smaller.

Currently, the DelFly II, fits in a 30cm sphere and can fly at a rate of 15m/seconds, in addition to being able to hover, and fly in reverse.

"We start with a system that works (DelFly I), but which on has only forward flight, and make it smaller and better. DelFly II is smaller and more robust, has longer flight time, is able to hover, take off and land vertically, can even fly backwards. It can fly against the ceiling
and walls without crashing - all this with a camera on board, so it is a useful platform."

The DelFly II can fly for 15 minutes and hover for 8. What's more amazing is that it also has streaming video. There more videos and images on the DelFly website. We've also posted some after the jump.




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