The goal is to create a flying machine totally unlike an airplane or a helicopter. The main difference is that insects flap their wings back and forth. And unless you're very unlucky, airplane wings are rigid and fixed, move in one direction during a flight from Chicago to Tokyo. Robofly would be able to stop, start, and change directions and altitudes easily, less like a plane and more like an insect. Dickinson is trying to imitate in robofly.
Flies are also great information processors, taking in visual information much faster than humans.
And flies, unlike robots, are incredibly resilient. Like Mark McGwire with a rolled up paper. Imagine doing that by any human-made mechanical device. Robofly, which, like robopike and robolobster, is being partially funded by the US Navy, could eventually be used for stealth surveillance, or search and rescue applications. If Dickinson and his team can mimic a fly's uncanny ability to find a warm, sweaty human to land on, robofly could find trapped earthquake survivors.