Scientists develop robot flies

Military scientists in Britain are developing robot flies that could be sent to spy out enemy positions.
Project leader Dr Rafal Zbikowski believes the first machine insects could fly within ten years, reports the Scotsman.
He has already produced a non-airborne prototype that mimics the wing-beats of a hover fly.
Dr Zbikowski says the tiny drones could operate in confined and cluttered spaces within buildings, stairwells, tunnels or caves.
They could help locate hidden terrorists, or find victims of natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The US military, which is partly funding the research, has even expressed an interest in using the robots to deliver small explosive charges.

They would be the ultimate "smart" weapon, able to destroy a specific target - such as a computer - without having to bomb whole facilities.
Dr Zbikowski is based at the Defence College of Management and Technology at Cranfield University in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire.

They could be used for humanitarian purposes but of course all the military can think of is bombing something. Anyway this isn't so very new I read about this in a sci-fi story many many years ago.


The bureaucrat in Appleford had been ensnared by the bait; his attention distracted, the librarian had become oblivious to the robot and to its actions. Therefore, as Appleford read, the robot expertly slid its chair back and to the left side, close to a reference card case of impressive proportions. Lengthening its right arm, the robot crept its manual grippers of fingeroid shape into the nearest file of the case; this Appleford did of course not see, and so the robot then continued with its assigned task. It placed a miniaturized nest of embryonic robots, no larger than pinheads, within the card file, then a tiny find-circuit transmitter behind a subsequent card, then at last a potent detonating device set on a three-day command circuit.

From Counter Clock World, by Philip K. Dick. Published by Berkley in 1967
Olaf Stapledon's SciFi classic "Last and First Men", published in 1930, also featured nanobots and we mustn't forget the 1966 science fiction movie “Fantastic Voyage”.