SCOTT SIMON, HOST: When you think about robots, if you do, you might think of famous images from science fiction, some kind of tin can built to vaguely resemble a human being.</s>ANTHONY DANIELS: (As C-3PO) I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations.</s>SCOTT SIMON, HOST: But why give robots our human limitations? Rob Wood, an engineer at Harvard, and colleagues are working to develop what they call a colony of flying robotic insects - what he calls RoboBees.</s>ROBERT WOOD: They look similar to let's say a large housefly, where there are, you know, two wings, each of the wings can flap more or less like a fly or a bee.</s>SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Now, why develop a robotic fly or bee when you have flies and bees?</s>ROBERT WOOD: There are several applications you could imagine. If I have, you know, these small robots that are agile and autonomous.</s>SCOTT SIMON, HOST: For instance, search and rescue.</s>ROBERT WOOD: You know, you can envision a firefighter having a box of a thousand of these things. And so, you know, I release them from a disaster site and they look for survivors.</s>SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And although RoboBees are tiny, and that's the point of them, Rob Wood says they can draw strength from operating in a swarm.</s>ROBERT WOOD: If several of the robots were to be injured or no longer functional, then others will just take the place. That's not true if you have, you know, one all-purpose big, sophisticated robot. If that gets broken, then, you know, mission over.</s>SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Rob Wood of Harvard says the development of robots as small as flies or bees may also lead to other tiny robotic devices that could be used in medicine. In the meantime, if you feel a small bite at the back of your neck, be careful before you swat. Is that an insect or sophisticated technology?
Robert Wood, an electrical engineer at Harvard's Microrobotics Lab, is engineering colonies of RoboBees. They don't sting, and they can be used for surveillance or crop pollination.