Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation grants funding to three Tampere University projects
Biodegradable, gram-weight drones navigate without motors
The goal of Associate Professor Hao Zeng’s (Tampere University) and Associate Professor Yinyin Bao’s (University of Helsinki) research group is to develop a completely new type of biodegradable drone powered by wind energy. Only about a centimeter long and weighing less than a gram, these drones are made from a material that helps them hover even in a light breeze and respond to environmental changes, such as shifts in light or humidity. They do not require a power source. Instead, they can independently take off and land, fly, and navigate—for example, by orienting toward the sun. The drones can carry a five-gram payload, and in the future, they could be equipped with different sensors and used, for instance, to monitor environmental conditions. The internationally ambitious project is expected to generate new knowledge by combining soft robotics with biodegradable materials.
The research projects that have received funding at Tampere University
- Associate Professor Isaac Afara (University of Eastern Finland), Professor Susanna Miettinen (Tampere University), Professor Rami Korhonen (University of Eastern Finland): Novel Photonics Sensing Approach for Monitoring, Modelling and Controlling Tissue Growth in a Bioreactor: Towards Personalised Cartilage Tissue Engineering – (M2C), 4 years, 1 570 000 €
- Associate Professor Hao Zeng (Tampere University), Associate Professor Yinyin Bao (University of Helsinki): Biodegradable and Environment-Adaptive Flyers (BioDrones), 4 years, 846 000 €
- Assistant Professor Rahul Mangayil (Aalto University), Professor Ville Santala (Tampere University): Biological storage of hydrogen (BioBattery 1.0), 2 years, 315 000 €
See all funding decisions from the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation on December 2025.
