Savannah: You ever notice how flying insects can lose parts of their wings and keep on flying? Well, MIT researchers have created a tiny flying robot that can sustain wing damage and stay airborne, too.

Insects can lose up to 40% of a wing and still fly because they can make adjustments to the position of their bodies and the frequency of their wing beats to compensate for the damage. But this has been hard to replicate in flying robots, since the way these insects change their posture is so nuanced. However, this new robot can lose up to 20% of its wing, thanks to its flexible flight actuators, or artificial muscles.

Those false muscles can be punctured by needles and tolerate huge burn holes. That actuator can bypass damaged electrodes, leaving the rest of the wing functional. And thanks to a new laser-repair method, the robots can recover 87% of their original performance.

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