What is it about?
Ionic wind — thrust created by accelerating charged air with electric fields — needs no moving parts, making it ideal for tiny flying robots. This paper presents our high-thrust, ultralight ion wind engine designed for controllable aerial microrobots. We systematically improved thrust density while cutting weight, achieving thrust-to-weight ratios that for the first time leave practical margin for control hardware and payloads. The engine's design rules — electrode geometry, voltage strategy, and weight budget — turn ion propulsion from a laboratory phenomenon into a flight-capable propulsion module.
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Why is it important?
Ion propulsion for aerial robots has long been trapped below the thrust-to-weight threshold for controlled flight. Crossing that threshold with margin is the difference between 'interesting physics' and 'engineering platform' — this paper documents that crossing in detail.
Perspectives
Microscale flying robots are hindered by scaling limits of traditional rotating propellers. Ion wind (electrohydrodynamic) propulsion offers a promising alternative with no moving parts, low vibration and quiet operation. Tao and colleagues report a high-thrust ultralight ion wind engine for controllable aerial microrobots. The needle-plate thruster weighs merely 18.1 mg and delivers 0.66 mN thrust, achieving a thrust-to-weight ratio of 3.7 and volumetric thrust density of 261 N/m³. Optimized four-collector geometry concentrates ion plumes and reduces cross-interference between multiple thrusters. Supported by multi-physics simulations and Schlieren flow visualization, independent voltage regulation of four thrusters realizes takeoff and attitude adjustment. This work breaks a key barrier for ion-wind microrobots. It validates the feasibility of differential EHD thrust for attitude control and lays a solid foundation toward fully autonomous insect-scale aerial robots. Future efforts will focus on onboard high-voltage power supply and long-term electrode stability.
Professor Wei Li
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: High-thrust ultralight ion wind engine toward controllable aerial microrobots, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Energy, December 2025, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.139027.
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