Glimpse of the Future

The ‘Smellicopter’ Drone Uses Actual Moth Antenna to Sniff Out Smells

The drone could be used in dangerous places where people can’t go

To make the Smellicopter, researchers added a moth antenna — the brown arc being attached here — to an open-source hand-held commercially available quadcopter. Photo: Mark Stone/University of Washington

Every week, Future Human’s Glimpse of the Future brings you an image of the science being deployed to solve the world’s pressing problems.

Meet the Smellicopter, an autonomous drone designed to sniff out odors and follow them to the source while avoiding obstacles. The drone, developed by mechanical engineers at the University of Washington, marries robotics and biology in a surprising way: by using a living antenna, plucked from a moth, as the odor sensor.

The researchers used an antenna from nature instead of building an electronic one because the cells in a moth’s antennae amplify scent signals quickly and efficiently. Most human-made sensors aren’t sensitive enough to detect and process specific smells while flying through an area with various odors.

The Smellicopter’s inventors imagine their drone being used in dangerous places where people can’t go, like unstable buildings after an earthquake or an area with unexploded landmines. The drone’s sniffing ability could be used to detect chemicals, gas leaks, and explosives or to locate disaster survivors. During lab tests, the…