Nov 25, 2013 10:01 AM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Scientists have created a four-winged robot that flies through the air identically to how a jellyfish swims in the water.

According to a press release, the robot and the researcher's work was presented at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Pittsburgh Sunday. The robot is a model for future surveillance, search and rescue and monitoring bots.

Leif Ristroph, an assistant professor of mathematics at New York University (NYU) who designed the robot, said the idea behind it was to not follow the conventional thinking of mimicking a two-winged animal. That type of flying is naturally unstable and the research team needed a better way to account for the instinctual split-second reactions made by birds and flies.

The four-winged approach gives the robot enough stability in the air to maneuver and handle even the most sudden gust of wind.

"Our [robot] is an aerial jellyfish if you will," Ristroph told NBC News. "No one's ever built this, and as far as we know nature never built it either to fly in air."

The bot weighs two grams and measures eight centimeters in width, but Ristroph and Stephen Childress, also of NYU, said the size and weight mostly depend on the size of the motor.

Their model is strictly just that, because the robot cannot yet operate without an external power source and also cannot steer. The bot is a model for how futures ones can be made. The simplicity, as well as the small size, will allow future bots of the same design to access spaces other small flying devices cannot.

Ristroph said the goal for these small flying devices is to get the tiny enough to fly around undetected, but still be able to send signals or record footage. For that to work, the design needs to be as simple as possible. "Ours is one of the simplest, in that it just uses flapping wings," he said in the release.

"That's the beauty of the design," Ristroph told NBC News, "It doesn't need a 'smart' design to help it recover."

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