Tiny Aircraft Feeds Itself With Dead Flies

An anonymous reader writes "The research team from southwest England have built a robot which can move and transmit sensor data over a radio link powered solely by unrefined food including dead flies and apples. The robot, known as Ecobot II, uses a Microbial Fuel Cell as its only power source. By "digesting" its own fuel, the aircraft could become autonomous and operate without the need for refueling, changing batteries or recharging from the mains. In the Microbial Fuel Cell microbes are used to extract electricity directly from food - in this case flies or apple." Several people noted this previous article on the same project.

Comments

Landfill power plants

[Twillerror]

The fact that we can turn food and other organic material in electricty is what excites me, more then the robot itself.

Could we use this to process our junk, or a good chunk of it in to electricty.

A compost pile that can power power your house, if only just as a small supplement would be cool.