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248 milligrams “on the back” of beetles. What is special about this wireless camera?

There is no doubt, and thinking, for example, of the first televisions and the first mobile phones, that technological advances have allowed the equipment to be smaller and smaller. This time, scientists at the University of Washington created a wireless camera so small that it can be placed on the back of a beetle. The weight? 248 milligrams.

The investigation was published on July 15, and the camera showed that it can rotate 60 degrees while transmitting the black and white video to a smartphone, all on the back of a beetle. Through Bluetooth technology, the maximum distance limit is 120 meters.

In an interview with Business Insider, Vikram Iyer, one of the authors of the article, guarantees that the team has been working on this investigation since late 2018. But why create GoPros for beetles? "In addition to looking like something from a science fiction film, this little wireless vision system is an important step in miniaturizing robots," explains Vikram Iyer.

The truth is that smartphone cameras are much smaller than those mounted by researchers on the beetles' backs. However, they are not wireless in the sense that they are connected to larger hardware components.

"While the camera chips we have in equipment like our mobile phones are small, they still have very large batteries and processors," said Vikram Iyer. And, in the researcher's opinion, advances in reducing the size of wireless cameras can bring enormous benefits to robotics.