Its OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) programme is aimed at enabling small-unit infantry forces to use swarms of small weaponised drones – 250 robots or more – to complete complex missions. The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has been busy working on biomimicry. This kind of bug tech still has a way to go, but a cockroach with a backpack that could save your life could well be on its way to you.
Tiny electrical impulses sent to the roach’s nerve tissue in either antenna lobe make it think it has found an obstacle, so a teeny charge to the left antenna makes the bug move to the right, and vice versa. Using a run-of-the-mill mobile phone, you can control the bug’s movements via a Bluetooth transmitter and receiver. Wires from the device are attached to the insect’s antennae lobes. The backpack also has a sensor for ambient temperature, as roaches are more likely to go walkies when it’s warmer. Incorporating a 9-axis inertial measurement unit, it can detect the roach’s six degrees of free motion, its linear and rotational acceleration, and its compass heading. Abhishek Dutta, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UConn, who developed the circuit with researcher Evan Faulkner, says: “We believe our microcircuit provides a more sophisticated and reliable control system that brings us a step closer to real-world implementation of this technology.”ĭutta, who specialises in control system optimisation and cyber-physical systems, used a Madagascar hissing cockroach as the pack mule.ĭutta and Faulkner say the microcircuit inside the backpack allows more reliable and precise control of insect motion. Yet UConn’s microcircuit is different, giving operators a greater degree of handling insect movement, real-time feedback of the bug’s neuromuscular response to artificial stimuli, and multi-channel avenues for stimulating the nerve tissue.įuture biobots could be used in the military and search and rescue operations. The idea of making insects do what you want using electronics is not new – biobots have been on engineers’ brains for over a decade. Everyone dies, the armoured bug probably survives. How adorable?Ĭockroaches are pretty indestructible – put a bomb on it, get it over enemy lines, activate the device. Robotics: Cyborg cockroachĮngineers at the University of Connecticut (UConn) have managed to direct the movement of a cockroach using a tiny electronic backpack. The military is always looking to improve its arsenal and where better to look than Mother Nature, where the best ways to handle problems are organic.
By looking to nature’s time-tested and sustainable approach to life, we can design and build extraordinary solutions for the engineering and technology world, otherwise known as biomimetics, or biomimicry. Whenever we humans are stuck for ideas on how to make things better, there’s a guarantee that nature already has it figured out.
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