Cyborg Beetles

Have you ever stopped and looked at a fly whizzing around the room and wondered how they were capable of achieving such remarkable speed and agility with such a limited amount of energy?  Well so did a bunch of scientists in attempting to build a miniature robotic house fly. 

How They Do it:
To achieve this amazing speed, the fly makes use of complex biomechanics. Its wings are not directly attached to the muscles of the thorax. Rather the fly tenses and relaxes the muscles in rhythmic cycles that cause the thorax itself to change shape. That deformation in turn sets the wings to oscillating, much the way a tuning fork vibrates after having been struck. In this way, the fly manages to convert a tiny bit of energy into a whole lot of motion with very little effort. (source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cyborg-beetles)

Unfortunately, scientists have been unable to meet energy requirements for these miniature flying robots as conventional batteries are incapable of storing enough to power their movements for more than a few minutes.  One day, perhaps, batteries will be efficient enough on a small enough scale to support these remarkable little robots.  Applications are numerous, including using the little flying beetle robots to infiltrate enemy holdouts and perform safe reconnaissance sweeps of dangerous area.