YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Why Is MIT Making Robot Insects?

Why Is MIT Making Robot Insects? — Transcript

by Veritasium · 3,501 words · 515 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00- [Derek] There are robots the size of bees,
0:03others that can jump on water,
0:05and some that are powered
0:07by tiny combustion engines the size of a penny.
0:11One day they could work in swarms,
0:13they could save your life, or even spy on you.
0:18We got access to the best micro robotics labs in the world.
0:21- Whoo, that flipped.
0:22- [Derek] To learn how these robots work
0:25and what are they for.
0:27This video is sponsored by Onshape.
0:30This is a tiny yellow submarine.
0:33Under water, it can move around
0:35by flapping these miniature wings nine times per second,
0:39but you can use those same wings
0:41when the submarine is out of the water,
0:43only now you have to flap them 250 times a second
0:47to make it fly.
0:48So, this robot can do both.
0:50It can fly and swim,
0:53but since it weighs only 175 milligrams,
0:55about the mass of two Cheerios,
0:57surface tension is a problem.
1:00- That's a consequence of physics at a smaller scale.
1:03The surface tension is like a wall
1:04that blocks the transition process.
1:07- This happens because water molecules
1:09are slightly polar.
1:10Groups of these molecules pull in all directions,
1:13but at the surface there's no water above,
1:15so the pull is only sideways and downwards.
1:18This imbalance creates strong, cohesive forces
1:21that compress the surface into a tightly packed layer,
1:24making it difficult to break.
1:27This is the same effect
1:28that lets water striders walk
1:29on the surfaces of ponds and lakes.
1:33This other robot weighs only 68 milligrams
1:36and by using a spring mechanism that mimics a flea's leg,
1:39it can jump without breaking the water's surface,
1:42just like a water strider.
1:44(upbeat music) (water bubbles)
1:46It's like there's solid ground below.
1:49(water bubbles)
1:51Now that's great if you wanna stay on top of the water,
1:54but this barrier can also be a problem
1:56if you want to go underwater.
2:00To escape this trap,
2:01the submarine splits water into hydrogen and oxygen
2:05and then stores these gases in a buoyancy chamber.
2:08It does this because the wings are super fragile.
2:11If they started flapping while the robot
2:13was still trapped under water, they would break right off.
2:17So, the buoyancy from the gas helps bring the fragile parts
2:21of the robot out of the water,
2:24but the robot is still stuck
2:25in that top layer of surface tension.
2:28So, a sparker inside the chamber ignites the gas,
2:32and the explosion breaks the surface tension
2:34and shoots the robot 30 centimeters into the air.
2:39And once it's free, this robot can fly.
2:44This robot found a different way
2:45to break through the surface tension.
2:47It uses these large water repellent copper pads on its feet
2:50to walk on the water,
2:53but when it needs to dive beneath,
2:55it applies 600 volts to those pads,
2:57which creates a positive charge
2:59that attracts water molecules to it
3:01and breaks the hydrophobic barrier,
3:03and that allows it to sink on command.
3:05(gentle music) (water gurgling)
3:08Then, once submerged, it can walk underwater.
3:13Both of these robots were made by Dr. Kevin Chen at MIT.
3:17- We're looking at the flight room,
3:18and this is where we do all of our flight experiment.
3:21As you can see, it has motion capture cameras.
3:25- [Derek] This lab
3:26is one of the only places in the world
3:27where robots this small attempt flight.
3:29- [Henry] Okay, so because this robot's so small,
3:31it is such low inertia, right?
3:33So, you're saying that it could flip faster
3:34than any other drone in the world?
3:36- Beyond 7,000 degrees per second.
3:38I mean, you can actually hit the button.
3:40- You'd let me hit the button?
3:42Yeah, I'd love to.
3:43- Ready? - Yep.
3:44- Okay. - Three, two, one.
3:46(robot buzzing) (triumphant music)
3:48(group cheering)
3:50(defeated music) (robot buzzing)
3:52- We know who's fault it is.
3:53(group laughing)
3:55- [Derek] Getting these robots flying is tough.
3:58I mean, they're the size of bees,
4:00so the internal mechanisms have to be even smaller,
4:03like the parts of a watch.
4:05- Yep. (wing buzzes)
4:06- You got that?
4:07- [Derek] Components have to be precise
4:08to within five microns.
4:10That's a 10th the width of a human hair.
4:13- In the summer,
4:14we have those very big flies zipping by in the lab,
4:17and I was making the statement of,
4:18"Oh, they're just showing off."
4:20(group laughing)
4:21- [Henry] Take two.
4:23- Three, two, one.
4:24(robot buzzes)
4:27- Whoo!
4:28(gentle music)
4:31- That flipped. - There we go.
4:33(group clapping)
4:40- So these bots fly but not like birds.
4:43I mean, they don't soar.
4:45Instead, they have to use a whole lot more energy,
4:47flapping their wings hundreds of times per second.
4:51So why do they do that?
4:53Well, it comes down to this scale phenomenon.
4:57Larger objects typically have less surface area
5:00relative to their volume,
5:02and that's important.
5:04Let's just approximate a flyer by a cube.
5:07Let's say it's 10 centimeters on a side.
5:10Well then that would have a volume of 10 by 10 by 10,
5:14or a thousand cubic centimeters,
5:16and it would have an area of 10 by 10 by six sides,
5:19600 square centimeters.
5:21So the surface area to volume ratio would be 0.6 to one.
5:26But now imagine we have a much smaller flyer
5:28that is just one cubic centimeter in volume.
5:31Well, its surface area is going to be one by one times six.
5:36That is six square centimeters.
5:38So that's gonna be 10 times the surface area
5:41to volume ratio.
5:42It's gonna have a surface area to volume ratio
5:44of six to one.
5:46Now why is that so important?
5:48Well, it's because drag depends on surface area.
5:51So if you have more surface area to volume,
5:53well you're gonna have a lot more drag,
5:56and also, at that small scale,
5:58you'll be much lighter relative to that drag.
6:01So you're not gonna have as much inertia,
6:03so you'll get pushed around more by the air,
6:06so you can't just soar through it like a bird.
6:09And that's why bees
6:10and other insects flap their wings a lot.
6:14What they're doing is generating swirls of air
6:17above the top of the wing,
6:18and those vortices create low-pressure zones.
6:22When combined with the high pressure below the wing,
6:24that is what generates lift.
6:26So they're pushed up into that low pressure region
6:29by flapping their wings back and forth.
6:35This robot was inspired by seeds from a maple tree.
6:38(gentle music)
6:40Their unique shape creates the same swirling vortices
6:43above the seed's leading edge,
6:47and as they fall,
6:48they spin and generate surprisingly high lift.
6:52These seeds are still just falling,
6:55but if you add miniature electric rotors
6:58to the ends of each wingtip on this robot,
7:00then it can generate enough lift to fly.
7:03(gentle music) (robot whirring)
7:08But this robot isn't quite insect scale.
7:12It actually weighs about 50 times more than the RoboBees
7:15in Kevin's lab.
7:17So to power something that small,
7:19you can't just use electric motors.
7:21I mean, the magnets and coils don't scale down effectively
7:24to such a small size.
7:27(gentle music)
7:29So to power the first RoboBees,
7:31they had wings driven by special crystals
7:33called piezoelectric crystals.
7:36By applying a voltage across the crystal,
7:38they contract slightly,
7:40but only around 0.1%,
7:42not nearly enough of a deflection to make a robot fly.
7:46So roboticists designed a chassis
7:48that mechanically amplifies the motion 30 times.
7:52If you then turn the voltage on
7:53and off 120 times per second,
7:56the RoboBee flaps its wings and flies.
8:01But there is a downside to piezoelectric crystals,
8:04which is, they're fragile.
8:06Even a small impact to the wings and the crystal cracks,
8:10and the RoboBee stops working.
8:12So at MIT, they are building their RoboBees differently.
8:17- They're so confident that it will survive being dropped
8:20that they're gonna let me throw it off of a building.
8:22So, I mean, here we go.
8:25(robot dings)
8:27(laughing) Okay, we gotta go see it. Come on.
8:29(gentle music) (henry laughs)
8:34I mean, it looks pretty good.
8:35This is amazing.
8:37Like how does this thing survive? I have no idea.
8:40- [Derek] Well, these robots have a secret ingredient.
8:43- So put into scale. - Okay.
8:45- Zero it.
8:46- [Derek] Instead of using piezos to drive the wings,
8:48these bees use soft polymers.
8:50They effectively work like tiny muscles.
8:53- Just drop it here.
8:55- [Derek] They take a polymer
8:56and they coat each side with carbon nanotubes
8:59that creates two effective conducting plates.
9:02So if you apply opposite charges to these plates,
9:05that pulls them together, stretching out the polymer.
9:08But if like charges are applied to both plates, they repel,
9:12and so the polymer shrinks
9:15and if we roll up layers like this into a tube,
9:17we can amplify the force they generate.
9:20It stretches up to 25% of its length.
9:24By cycling the voltage hundreds of times per second,
9:27these muscles drive the RoboBees wings.
9:32- When you shrink down to smaller scale,
9:35your fly wing frequency goes up higher.
9:37So we are at the 400 hertz range.
9:39- Which is right in between a honeybee and a mosquito.
9:41- Yes. (group laughs)
9:44- [Derek] This flexible muscle can take bumps
9:46and scrapes and keep working,
9:48but if it's pierced by a needle,
9:50the carbon nanotubes get pulled in
9:53and then the plates touch,
9:54causing a short circuit that renders the muscle useless.
9:57But the scientists have even found a way around this.
10:00When high current is cycled,
10:02the carbon nanotubes that are touching burn off
10:05and so the muscle self-heals.
10:08Kevin and his team even invented a process
10:10to perform laser surgery on the robot.
10:13- You're creating smaller defect
10:15around a very, very big defect
10:17and then by isolating the small defect,
10:19you're using the small defect to isolate the big defect.
10:21So that was what we call
10:22the laser-assisted clearing process.
10:25- One robot was really tested to its limits.
10:28Its artificial muscle was pierced by cactus needles
10:31and hit by a laser beam (laser sizzling)
10:33and it could still fly,
10:36but these muscles are energy intensive
10:39and for robots at this scale that have to be so light,
10:41there's no room for extra batteries.
10:44Luckily, there is another way to get around.
10:48- [Henry] That's a jumping, flying robot.
10:49- [Kevin] Yeah.
10:50(upbeat music)
10:51- [Derek] This RoboBee conserves energy by hopping.
10:54This tech was used on another drone
10:56at the City University of Hong Kong.
10:59Normally this drone can only fly continuously
11:01for 6.3 minutes,
11:03but with the hopping attachment,
11:05it can keep moving for 50 minutes,
11:07nearly 10 times longer.
11:09(RoboBee buzzing)
11:11Scientists believe this could be even more effective
11:13in low-gravity, low-air resistance environments like Mars.
11:17So it would be perfect for an ingenuity version 2.0.
11:21But microrobots are already being used today.
11:24(gentle music) (airplane whooshing)
11:27Every day planes complete hundreds of thousands of flights
11:30and most of them have multiple turbine engines.
11:33Now a crack in a turbine can be catastrophic,
11:36so manufacturers inspect them every 3000 flight cycles
11:39or 180 days,
11:41but inspections cost tens of thousands of dollars
11:44and can take a whole day.
11:46That's where this cockroach-inspired robot from earlier,
11:49HAMR, comes in.
11:50It's incredibly fast,
11:52it can run 10.5 body lengths per second.
11:55Speaking in relative terms,
11:57that's faster than a horse, and it's versatile.
12:00Its special foot pads can apply a voltage
12:03to polarized metal surfaces,
12:05creating an opposite charge underneath its feet
12:08and that's how it's able to stick to metal surfaces,
12:11similar to a balloon sticking to a wall
12:13after you rub it on your hair.
12:15Rolls-Royce and Harvard are working to put HAMR
12:17inside of engines to inspect for turbine cracks
12:21even upside down.
12:22And since its mass is so small,
12:24adhesion forces are much stronger relative to its weight.
12:28So HAMR can get into some tight spaces
12:31and that can be pretty useful.
12:34(sirens wailing) One of the first times
12:35that robots were deployed in an emergency situation
12:38was during the 9/11 search for survivors at Ground Zero.
12:42Unfortunately, they didn't turn out to be that helpful.
12:45They were big and expensive and they'd get stuck.
12:49Three different types inspected eight sections of rubble,
12:52but none found survivors.
12:55So an ideal rescue robot
12:57should be able to navigate tight spaces,
12:58withstand damage and debris,
13:00operate across varied environments,
13:02and be inexpensive enough to be replaced if destroyed.
13:06- The material cost is actually quite low
13:08for making the robot.
13:10The human labor is high,
13:12but in terms of the material, right,
13:13couple of dollars per robot,
13:15but it's really not that much.
13:16- Really? - Yes.
13:17- So the idea is to deploy swarms
13:20of insect-sized microrobots
13:22to search for survivors in disaster zones.
13:24(dramatic music) (siren wailing)
13:29But I understand when I say swarm,
13:31you might get a little worried.
13:33I mean, swarms of miniature killer robots
13:35are straight out of dystopian sci-fi.
13:39Think the hunter-seeker from "Dune"
13:41or the killer robot bees from "Black Mirror."
13:43- You might be familiar
13:44with that like famous "Black Mirror" TV episode
13:46where all like the bees.
13:47- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.
13:48When that came out,
13:49everybody that I had ever met in my entire life
13:51sent me a text message and was like,
13:53"Hey bro, you seen this?"
13:56- [Derek] But this idea isn't so farfetched.
13:58In the early 2000s, bees were dying off.
14:01- It's called colony collapse disorder.
14:03- Congress is holding hearings,
14:05even the Vice President has been briefed.
14:06- In fact, the whole RoboBee project started
14:08with the goal of replacing the bees.
14:11Thankfully that idea didn't last long.
14:14- Bees can do much better jobs
14:16in terms of pollination than those robots much more cheaply.
14:21To pollinate,
14:21you need a huge colony of bees to do those effectively.
14:26Also, from an environmental protection perspective,
14:28I think it doesn't make sense
14:29to replace bees with robotics bees
14:33from a cost-effective perspective
14:35and also from the perspective of, you know,
14:37if you have so much money,
14:39why you making those bees than protecting the real bees.
14:42- Okay, so they won't replace the bees,
14:44but I can still easily imagine a world
14:46where these same robots
14:47that are supposed to help in a disaster
14:49are secretly being used to spy on me.
14:52(tense music) (robot buzzing)
14:54I mean, it's a bug that would literally look like a bug.
14:59(shower water dripping) That's terrifying.
15:00- Is there any fear from you
15:02about what they could be used for, like ethically?
15:05- We really focus on the fundamental science
15:07and solving the fun technical problems.
15:09And as a society in general,
15:11we all should think about collectively
15:14how to prevent those new technology from doing harm.
15:17- But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
15:20I mean, most of the robots we've seen
15:21aren't able to spy on us.
15:23In fact, they're not even fully autonomous.
15:26- We have offboard sensing from those cameras,
15:30you have offboard power from those,
15:32and offboard computation.
15:34What you see today is everything is offboard.
15:36But hopefully in five years,
15:38then we can combine both sensing autonomy
15:39and power autonomy,
15:40and that's the longer-term goal.
15:41- That's awesome.
15:42- Harvard's RoboBee has managed short bursts
15:45of untethered autonomous flight.
15:47So it's fair to say we aren't that far off
15:50from robot insects operating freely around us.
15:54Still, there is a limit
15:55to how far these robots can go on just batteries.
16:00Batteries need shielding to prevent damage,
16:02short circuits, and leaks.
16:04And the thing is, as batteries are scaled down,
16:06this shielding has to stay about the same thickness.
16:09So that means smaller batteries
16:11become increasingly inefficient.
16:14And that's ignoring that the energy-to-weight ratio
16:16of batteries is just fundamentally lower
16:18than that of chemical fuels.
16:21At the insect scale, every milligram matters.
16:25- We just said, like let's just sail past all of that
16:27and just use a video game cheat code
16:30and just power our robot
16:32with the smallest explosions possible
16:34and put two tiny internal combustion engines on board it,
16:38and it works.
16:40(upbeat music) (robot tapping)
16:41And it sounds like a combustion engine,
16:42which is probably my favorite part of it.
16:44(robot tapping)
16:47- [Derek] Cameron's penny-sized engine runs
16:49on a constant stream of methane and oxygen.
16:52This is fed into a chamber where it's ignited by a spark
16:56and so it combusts, releasing a burst of energy.
16:59The hot gases rapidly expand,
17:01pushing against a flexible polymer membrane
17:03that acts like a piston.
17:05- So the membrane moves as the piston
17:07and then instead of having to, like, have any sort
17:10of elaborate system that brings it back down
17:12because it just naturally is elastic,
17:14it sort of has its own restoring force.
17:16That was our clever little innovation.
17:19- As the membrane shrinks back,
17:21it vents the exhaust gases, allowing the cycle to repeat.
17:24(mechanism tapping)
17:25Despite the continuous flow of methane and oxygen,
17:28the fuel line never catches fire.
17:31That's because as explosions get smaller,
17:33their volume shrinks much faster than their surface area.
17:36This causes them to lose heat more quickly
17:38to their surroundings.
17:40In Cameron's robot,
17:41only a small amount of gas burns at a time,
17:44so heat quickly escapes into the fuel line,
17:46cooling the gas
17:48and stopping the flame from traveling back up the line.
17:52With just two of these combustion chambers
17:54on a little robot,
17:55one for the front legs and one for the back,
17:57Cameron can control its heading.
17:59- You can actuate just one of the two sides
18:02at a given time if you want
18:03because both sides are operational.
18:05So if we spark in both sides, it'll move straight.
18:07But if we just do one or the other, it'll pivot.
18:09- [Derek] And this robot
18:10is super powerful for its size.
18:13- It weighs 1.6 grams,
18:15which is about as much as a gummy bear weighs.
18:18(robot tapping)
18:19It can jump like two feet in the air approximately.
18:21It can carry 22 times its body weight,
18:23which is about what a cockroach or a lot of beetles can do.
18:26We'll be able to put a fuel tank, you know,
18:29microelectronics sensors, a camera battery,
18:32and still have weight left over to go,
18:34and this thing will still chug along.
18:37That's the future. That's the goal.
18:41- Scientists have created robots
18:43that can do what some insects do
18:45and there are clear applications for this work.
18:49But for these roboticists, these self-labeled misfits,
18:52that's not what it's all about.
18:55- If it's about application,
18:56we should all like make a startup
18:57and try to like think about what we can do
18:59to make money, right?
19:01We think there are nice applications,
19:03like inspection and search and rescue,
19:06but I would say as a research lab,
19:08we are mostly driven by curiosity.
19:10I think that's a very honest answer. (laughs)
19:13(quirky electronic music)
19:16- So cool.
19:19If you are someone
19:20who designs hardware like these robots, mini or mighty,
19:24you know that you need to create a CAD model first
19:27so you can prototype and bring your ideas to life.
19:30But the problem with most mainstream CAD software
19:33is you need a very powerful computer and a mighty budget.
19:36That's why we reached out to today's sponsor, Onshape.
19:39Onshape is a modern CAD
19:41and PDM system designed for businesses.
19:44And unlike any other professional CAD system,
19:47Onshape is built entirely in the cloud,
19:49powered by Amazon Web Services.
19:51That means you don't need expensive computer hardware,
19:54it never crashes, and you never lose your work.
19:58It just runs in your browser on any system,
20:01be it Windows, Mac, Linux, or even on your phone.
20:05I can actually pull up that mini robot model right now
20:08and start moving some of these things around.
20:11It's also built to be collaborative
20:13so you can work alongside friends
20:14or colleagues like never before
20:16on the same design in real time.
20:19For businesses, you can trial Onshape for six months
20:22and for students' hobbyists, it's completely free to use.
20:25Just head over to onshape.pro/veritasium
20:28and sign up to get started today.
20:30Onshape also uses tried
20:31and tested Git-style version control methods
20:33from software design so you don't have to worry
20:36about sending multiple large files around
20:38and keeping track of all the different iterations.
20:40It is all done for you.
20:42None of this emailing V2 final final
20:44for real this time one nonsense.
20:47If you work for a government agency
20:49or have contracts with the government, I have good news.
20:52Onshape now has a plan that enables teams
20:54to comply with federal regulations like ITAR and EAR,
20:58so nothing is holding you back.
21:00Go sign up for free at onshape.pro/veritasium
21:03to get started engineering for the future today.
21:06I wanna thank Onshape for sponsoring this video,
21:08and I want to thank you for watching.
21:14It's so cool.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Why Is MIT Making Robot Insects? by Veritasium, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,501 words across 515 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.