Drones fly with electric muscles, no motors or gears
Rutgers engineers demonstrate a solid-state ornithopter that uses voltage-driven piezoelectric layers embedded in carbon‑fiber wings to flex and twist the wing surface, eliminating motors and gears. A computational model tests aerodynamics and control for mechanism-free flapping flight, which could enable agile operation in cluttered environments with applications from environmental monitoring to search-and-rescue and urban delivery, though material limits today constrain performance.