Imagine climbing a remote mountain, cut away from the rest of the world with no help or food. A nightmare, right? Especially when you have no food. While aid in these situations does arrive, it takes time for them to reach your location. That is when an edible drone comes to your rescue and ensures you aren’t hungry.
In emergencies, drones are proven beneficial in transporting medical kits, food, and water. However, they can carry only 10-30% of their mass payload. A team of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) have come across this flaw. They have developed a prototype of the edible drone. The wings of this drone are edible, which has increased the food-carrying capacity to 50 per cent. The project ‘RoboFood’, dedicated to inventing edible robots, is responsible for this invention.
The Composition Of Edible Drones
Before the prototype, there was an introduction of a paper on edible drones at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on IROS i.e. Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Kyoto. The main edible components of the drone are its wings. They consist of rice cakes glued with gelatine. The rice cakes are laser cut in hexagon shapes. This makes it easier to stick them together with the help of gelatine. Finally, plastic is wrapped around the wings to keep humidity away. The length of each wing is 678 mm, and their combined energy value is around 300 kcal.
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The Benefits Of Rice Cakes In Edible Drone
The rice cakes provide 3870 kcal/kg. It has a similar nutritional level to that of oats and barley. The density of these cakes is appropriate for air transportation. To produce rice puffs, factories need to have high-pressure and high-temperature environments.
So, what do you think about this edible drone? Isn’t it a fantastic idea?
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Cover Image Credits: Wikimedia & Flickr