Robot Butterflies Could Fool Anyone Into Thinking its The Real Thing

Festo appears to have created a robotic doppleganger that looks and acts as a real butterfly, but you won’t see these things in open spaces just yet.

The company is said to have revealed a small swarm of the robotic butterflies flying laps around its headquarters. When you think of robots moving around, you immediately think they are equipped with sensors to detect objects, but this is not the case for Festo’s design.

In order to keep the lightweight, small and airborne, the company used twelve cameras placed around the room, which kept track of each butterfly using a unique infrared mark on each one.

The cameras are said to have provided data to a central computer, where the information was processed and instructions given to each robot on where to go. While the complex system did showcase how the robotic butterflies could move and act as the real thing, they do not seem to be quite ready to tackle open spaces just yet. Still, it is a step forward.

Thank you Gizmodo for providing us with this information