• Breakthrough could lead to cockroaches being fitted with video cameras
• Scientists also developing system to hunt for survivors in earthquakes using swarms of insects

Researchers have shown off a ‘cyborg’ cockroach they can control remotely.

The team have been able to accurately steer it to follow complex shapes on the ground.

Now they hope to fit it with video cameras and other sensors, so it can crawl into buildings undetected, and even search earthquakes for survivors.

‘Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces,’ says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work.

‘Ultimately, we think this will allow us to create a mobile web of smart sensors that uses cockroaches to collect and transmit information, such as finding survivors in a building that’s been destroyed by an earthquake.

The team were able to make the coackroaches walk along a blue line drawn on the floor. They now hope to investigate adding sensors and even a camera to it

‘Building small-scale robots that can perform in such uncertain, dynamic conditions is enormously difficult,’ Bozkurt says.

‘We decided to use biobotic cockroaches in place of robots, as designing robots at that scale is very challenging and cockroaches are experts at performing in such a hostile environment.’

The researchers were able to precisely steer the roaches along a curved line.
read more