Swiss experts have developed a new way to move very small drones using sound waves.
Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have developed tiny drones that can move through air and water using sound waves.
According to research, experts have installed special hollow structures called ‘cavities’ in these small vehicles and drones, these structures convert sound into a moving force, while the amount of thrust produced depends on the frequency of the sound.
EPFL’s Micro-BioRobotic Systems Laboratory has developed round and bell-shaped cavities, with sound waves causing the air inside them to vibrate, causing the air to exit in a focused jet.
The difference in the flow of air in and out creates thrust to propel the drone forward.
For this purpose, the researchers used a principle called ‘Helmholtz resonance’, which can be understood by the example of the sound produced by blowing lightly on the mouth of an empty bottle.
Experts have also produced model boats about 1 cm long, with up to 3 cavities installed and each cavity tuned to a different frequency.
Different cavities could be activated by changing the frequency of the sound from the speaker, which enabled the boats to move in different directions, avoid obstacles and automatically follow predetermined routes, similar experiments were done with flying micro-drones.
According to the researchers, this technology does not require conventional motors, gears or magnetic components, which allows such devices to be made extremely small and light.
According to the director of the EPFL laboratory, in the future several structures sensitive to different sounds can be installed in a single flexible device, which will be able to move, bend or vibrate certain parts of the device by listening to sound of different frequencies.
Experts say that this technology could help in the future in the development of aerodynamic robots that can change their shape or direction in response to sound.
Experiments have already been done to suspend objects in the air using sound waves.