Photonics for a Better World

Robotic pollinator Photo and video: Miyako et al. Can you imagine a world in which our crops and flowers are pollinated by autonomous drones the size of bees? Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology believe this reality could be closer than we may think due to staggering declines in bee populations around the world. Eijiro Miyako and his colleagues have used the principle of cross-pollination to engineer a bioinspired robotic pollinator, which can mimic the functionality of real bees, reports an article published in Science Direct . Measuring 4 centimeters wide and weighing a mere 15 grams, each drone is equipped with a strip of horsehair coated in an iconic liquid gel, allowing it to pick up pollen from one flower and deposit it in another. "GPS, high-resolution cameras and artificial intelligence will be required for the drones to independently track their way between flowers and land on them correctly, " sa...

Researchers around the world are in the midst of developing artificial skins essential to modern robotics, prosthetic limbs, and other applications. Designed to emulate the most practical properties of human skin, some artificial skin technologies have managed to surpass the sensory capabilities of living tissues. One such technology is a temperature-sensitive electronic film, which has paralleled the record performance of the world's most sensitive heat-detecting organism, the Crotalinae , commonly know as the pit viper. While in the process of fabricating materials for synthetic wood, a team of researchers discovered a film made of pectin, a sugar molecule responsible for the temperature sensitivity in plants, could exhibit an electrical response to changes in temperature when enriched with positively-charged calcium ions. This finding led to the study " Biomimetic temperature-sensing layer for artificial skins " by senior author Chiara Daraio , et al., which w...

It's Shaman, a great horned owl, naturally, featured in the video above with handler Sunni Robertson, a lead educator guide at the San Diego, California, Zoo. Robertson was presenting at what has become a very popular session at the SPIE Smart Structures and Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) symposium each spring. Staff from the San Diego Zoo Animal Ambassadors program participate in a session on biomimicry and bioinspiration, demonstrating how studying animals can inspire ideas for solving design problems. In the case of the owl, insights for optical design were gained from studying how owls' eyes function, and for acoustics as well. Engineers looking for a way to reduce noise of Japan's high-speed trains as they travel through cities and across the countryside found answers in examining the construction of the owl's wings. The zoo's biomimicry education program dovetails with a conference on...