Scientists Develop Drone That Can Fold Into Itself Or Dissolve

While drones are pretty small, they can still be detected, but what if you could build a drone that could fold into itself, thus becoming incredibly tiny, or even better yet, what if these drones could somehow dissolve itself, thus erasing any evidence of it being around? As it turns out this is something the folks at MIT have come up with.

Researchers at the university have recently revealed that they have created a drone that measures just 1.7cm long. The drone does not look like much upon first glance and resembles something that looks like a piece of paper or wafer. However the drone can be activated by a heat source after which it will transform its shape and will begin moving. In fact it has no problems swimming either and will move at a speed of 3cm/s.

Admittedly that is rather slow but its the design of the drone and its features that are intriguing, not so much its speed, which is courtesy of a pair of neodymium magnets that cycles on and off, thus causing the drone to move. Once the drone has completed whatever it is meant to do, users can drop it into an acetone bath in which it will then dissolve itself, leaving the magnets behind.

Alternatively the researchers envision that it could also fold into itself inside your body which presumably could be used for medical purposes as well. It’s an intriguing little device and if you’d like to see it in action, check it out in the video above.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Drones