It would be considered a game changer if you had a flying robot that could relay information to you from anywhere you want, at the same time being undetectable by people, because of looking like a natural insect. Well, now you have it. The dragonfly robot, developed by TechJect Inc. is a flying robot insect which can fly like a bird or an airplane or hover in the air like an insect. It weighs less than 1 ounce (28 grams) and continues to be smaller and lighter in weight with each upgrade. The research began with a $1,000,000 grant from US Air force and the robot is being developed by Georgia Tech. University, but a lot of professors across different Universities around the world are also contributing to the effort as well.

Dragonfly robot is also highly modular and this enables it to be customized for different purposes, which ranges between a hovering and a gliding version. For instance, for a gaming application you could choose a faster version or for an outdoor photography application you could choose a version which has more endurance. The robot can be controlled in many ways including wifi or gps connection and by phone or ipad too. The robot has 20 environmental sensors, cameras and GPS sensors and can be used to track literally anything indoors or outdoors. For instance, it can be used inside for home security and report anything from inside or outside of a house or it can be used to track an athlete or a skier outdoors. Another obvious use would be in military or police force of course. The use of these robots would also eliminate the necessity of needing a helicopter to track things from the air in most cases (well except if you are shooting a Hollywood movie and need a very high resolution and zoom camera), which is literally thousands of times more costly to operate, in comparison to operating this small insect robot.

If you like to order one of these, you will need to wait until July of this year, as the development of the robot is still being finalized. A lot of different ordering options is available depending on your planned use. You can visit the official sites at:

http://www.indiegogo.com/robotdragonfly

http://www.techject.com/dragonfly.html

Photo and Video Credits: Techject Inc.