Can a robotic bee replace the real ones in the pollination process?
Scientists from the Warsaw Polytechnic University propose this innovation in view of the decrease in the number of pollinating insects in the world.
Scientists from the Polytechnic University of Warsaw created the first robotic bee designed to artificially pollinate, a miniaturized dron able to find a flower, collect its pollen and transfer it from the male to the female flower to fertilize it.
The robotic insect has already been successfully tested in the field and its ability to pollinate is offered as a "hopeful alternative" to cope with the steady reduction of the world population of bees, said its creator, engineer Rafal Dalewski.
"Last summer we did the test and we already have the first seed obtained through this artificial pollination, so it is demonstrated that our robot can do almost the same as real bees", Explains Dalewski.
However, he recognizes that he has not been able to design a drone that can produce honey, "although the technology advances very fast and every time it surprises us more"He jokes.
The pollinator robot is not intended to replace insects, but to help its work and complement it, explains the engineer, who does not make judgments about whether his drone is better than real bees to pollinate.
The biodron not only helps nature, but it also does it in an intelligent way, because it can be programmed to concentrate on a specific area and look for flowers of a specific type to pollinate, all through a computer program.
The Warsaw Polytechnic has created two types of pollinator drones, one flying and the other terrestrial, both armed with a kind of feather duster that impregnates the pollen that they then distribute among other flowers.
The terrestrial has more autonomy of work and his battery is more durable, "so the farmer can quietly retire home and leave the drone working until he returns autonomously to his energy source".
Its creator states that these robots can also be used for a "precision farming" as "smart dosers"Of fertilizers, fertilizers or pesticides, since they can be programmed to deposit certain amounts depending on the type of plant or location.
The university wants to put to work the first prototypes from the 2017, and take their production in series in two years.
The invention is significant at a juncture in which the mortality of pollinating insects on which most crops depend increases each year without knowing the causes.
Source: Reuters
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