Caltech researchers study bees' movements for robots that can fly, swim

Two researchers at Caltech are developing a small robot that mimics the motions of bees to both swim and fly.

The findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Chris Roh, who is an engineer at Caltech, noticed a bee thrashing in the water of Millikan Pond on one of his daily walks through the campus.

The bee fell in the water and was attempting to escape. However, the movements of the bee in the water caught Roh's attention.

As the bee grappled its way to the pond's edge, NSF reported that Roh paid close attention to the shadows on the bottom of the pool, which revealed the amplitude of the waves created by the bee's wings.

When Roh returned to his lab, he and his colleague Mory Gharib recreated the circumstances of Millikan Pond. 

Gharib said that the wings of the bee acted as a type of "hydrofoil" that allowed the bee to travel on the top of the water using the trapped water on the bee's wings.

"The motion of the bee's wings creates a wave that its body is able to ride forward," Gharib said, according to the NSF. "It hydrofoils, or surfs, toward safety."