Question

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

1.The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that __________.

A.they had no model in their mind

B.they did not have sufficient time

C.they had no ready-made components

D.they could not assemble the components

2.It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly __________.

A.consists of a flight device and a control system

B.can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C.can collect information from many sources

D.has been put into wide application

3.Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

A.The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B.Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C.There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D.Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments.

4.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A.Father of Robotic Fly

B.Inspiration from Engineering Science

C.Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D.Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.D

4.C

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。主要介绍的是哈佛大学从自然界的昆虫那里得到了灵感，设计开发了第一款机器苍蝇。文章介绍了该项研究存在的困难，研究将要发展的方向和该研究会带来的好处。

1.细节理解题。根据第二段的“The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own可知，类似这样的项目的一个额外的困难就是，这些组成部件从来就没有现成的，我们不得不靠自己去开发，从中可知，困难就是没有现成的组成部件，故选C。

2.推理判断题。根据第四段的“While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield”可知，虽然第一架机器人飞行器与一个小型非机载电源相连，但最终目标是为其配备一个内置电源，以便有朝一日它可以在救援地点、农民的田地或战场上执行数据收集工作。由此推知，目前由于电池等的限制，只能在有限的区域飞行，故选B。

3.细节理解题。根据第四段的it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield可知，A项是错误的。B项中animals are not allowed 是错的，应该是difficult with animals,即有些用动物来做试验是困难的，不是不允许。C项在文中并没有提到以前方法的多少，文中只是说offers a new way to study，提供了新的方法，故排除C项。根据最后一段的 you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals，but using these robots instead，可知，用动物研究生物学会很难，但是机器人可以取代动物，所以在某些实验中，Wood的设计可以取代动物。故选D。

4.主旨大意题。由第一段“A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly”可知，短文主要介绍的是哈佛大学从自然界的昆虫那里得到了灵感，设计开发了第一款机器苍蝇。所以短文的最佳标题是“机器苍蝇模仿现实生活中的昆虫” ，故选C。