Technologies of Writing

Volume 3, Issue 2

Spring, 2006

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Bugg's: The Newest Thing Going in Technology
by Sam King
                     

gfrgf Roaches are now going remote control robot. In Japan their highest learning center Tsukuba University has been doing some very interesting research. The head of the bio-robot team, Assistant Professor Isao Shimoyama, says that "Insects can do many things that humans can't. The potential applications of this work for mankind could be immense."

The roaches are anesthetized with carbon dioxide before their wings and antenna are removed. Then where the antenna used to be researchers attach pulse emitting electrodes, and a backpack with micro electronics. With a remote control the researchers are able to send signals to control the insects movements. The signals can make the roach turn right or left, run forward or jump backwards. Within a few years Shimoyama says electronically controlled insects carrying miniature cameras or other sensors will be able to undertake many sensitive missions - Such as crawling through earthquake rubble to search for victims.

The roach of choice is the American cockroach, because it's bigger than most other species. Can you imagine the government using insects to spy on people. The U.S. military, facing problems in its efforts to train insects or build robots that can mimic their flying abilities, now wants to develop "insect cyborgs" that can go where troops cannot. The Pentagon is seeking applications from researchers to help them develop technology that can be implanted into living insects to control their movement and transmit video or other sensory data back to their handle. DARPA scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later. Trained wasps could someday replace dogs for sniffing out drugs, bombs and bodies. Scientists say a species of non-stinging wasps can be trained in only five minutes and are just as sensitive to odors as specially trained dogs.


Researchers have attached electrodes to a locust and attached it to a robotic cart to see if their wing motions could be used to steer the vehicle. Scientists are altering the genetics of insects and bacteria to prevent them from transmitting diseases such as malaria but the ultimate effects are unpredictable. Scientists say a species of non-stinging wasps can be trained in only five minutes and are just as sensitive to odors as specially trained dogs. Ants might be able to run telecommunication networks better than humans. Researchers have found that control programs based on the foraging behaviour of ants can keep data networks running more efficiently and cope with congestion better than many human alternatives.


The U.S. military, facing problems in its efforts to train insects or build robots that can mimic their flying abilities, now wants to develop "insect cyborgs" that can go where troops cannot. The Pentagon is looking for applications from researchers to help them develop technology that can be implanted into living insects to control their movement and transmit video or other sensory data back to their handlers.

Insects can see what humans cannot. Our eyes are set too close together to provide reliable depth information. But that hasn't stopped the creatures with their tiny brains and low-resolution eyes from navigating through complex environments. "The principle is simply that, if the insect flies along a straight line, objects that are near it appear to whiz by much more rapidly in the eye than objects that are far away," says Srinivasan. "Thus, the distance to an object can be inferred in terms of the velocity of its image in the eye -- the greater the velocity, the nearer the object."

Present models of aircraft being developed by the team include a miniature video camera. The camera transmits signals to a ground station which analyses the incoming images to compute optic flow, then radios back the appropriate commands. Two demonstrations are scheduled to take place later this year at NASA to see if the technology can be included in future Martian aerial probes.

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