See the tiny flying robots that could one day explore space

The ion propulsion robot Berkeley showed off in 2017 was small enough to fit on the face of a penny. According to Drew, the team is now working on a larger model that's about .78 Although current versions of the ionocraft must be tethered to a power source, Drew thinks that won't always be the case -- and once they can fly freely, the tiny bots could have a variety of applications, including space exploration. "If we move towards a model of robot swarms as future interstellar explorers (e.g. Starshot), then I think EHD would be an interested propulsion mechanism," he told IEEE Spectrum.