Light-weight solar-powered flying robots are coming

Researchers have developed very lightweight solar-powered flying robots in a bid to overcome the limitations of small-scale drone flyers. Youtube Video Weighing just 4.21 grams — roughly the same as a sugar cube — the so called CoulombFly has achieved sustained flight under natural sunlight conditions, by means of a new light …

[heyrick]

Those with a pessimistic bent

Add to that, it's probably far too light/flimsy to carry any sort of useful payload, whether that be a camera or something that goes bang.

I suppose with better flight controls it could fetch me Maltesers one by one...?

[redpawn]

Re: Those with a pessimistic bent

How about a few 10^x viruses?

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Is that motor made of graphene without any mention of it? Times have changed.

[Will Godfrey]

Fascinating

Only time will tell whether anything practical comes from this. One lives in hope

[Alfie Noakes]

Exposure!

Methinks that the electrostatic motor might have problems in light mist (or even smoke) - never mind a splash of rain?

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Re: Exposure!

Electrostatic air purifier hover bots? Some megacorp could spend millions on a plan like that. It doesn't matter if it works as long as they get government credit for offsetting air pollution.

If they use ultra-toxic CdTe solar film, another company can make money gathering them when they fall.

[Fr. Ted Crilly]

Re: Exposure!

Nag wait for gen 2 and the Grunt-Master 9000 pro version.

[Pascal Monett]

Ultra-light solar cells

I'm impressed. The drone might be (very) flimsy, but those solar cells are paper-thin and ultra light, yet they do deliver current.

I wonder how long they last.

[Bebu]

"they wouldn’t hurt a fly"

One midge (sandfly) bite might hurt but a couple a million of these blood sucking blighters could give Dracula run for his money.

A large coordinated cloud of these micro-drones could be quite formidable threat even if each one took a pinhead of flesh. :)

[Zingaiya]

Sugar density

"Weighing just 4.21 grams — roughly the same as a sugar cube"

Umm... I'm no mathematician, but this seems just a touch on the dense side, unless El Reg uses some whopping big sugar cubes.

For a sugar cube 1cm^3 to weigh that much, it'd have the same density as titanium.

[Little Mouse]

Re: Sugar density

You're describing a proper "British" cube, like my nan would have in a bowl, wrapped in paper in neat pairs. Are they still a thing?

The "cubes" I see in todays cafes these days are more like large unwashed chunks of sugar ore, straight from the sugar mines. Considerably larger, plus all the grit and unrefined bits (it's natural, innit?) all adding to the overall mass.