Cyborg cockroaches that find earthquake survivors. A \u201crobofly\u201d that sniffs out gas leaks. Flying lightning bugs that pollinate farms in space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
These aren\u2019t just buzzy ideas, they\u2019re becoming reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Robotic engineers are scouring the insect world for inspiration.\u00a0<\/b>Some are strapping 3D-printed sensors onto live Madagascar hissing cockroaches, while others are creating fully robotic bugs inspired by the ways insects move and fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Heavy robots are limited in what they can do. Building tinier and more agile robots, similar to how insects move and act, could vastly expand robots\u2019 capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf we think about the insect functions that animals can\u2019t do,\u201d said Kevin Chen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at MIT, \u201cthat inspires us to think about what smaller, insect-scale robots can do, that larger robots cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the advances are in the research phase, years from commercialization. But they present tantalizing solutions for an array of industries, including emergency response, farming and energy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The research is picking up the pace for a few reasons, experts said. Electronic sensors are getting smaller and better, largely because of smartwatch and smartphone research. Fabrication techniques have advanced, making it easier to construct tiny parts. Small battery technology is also improving.<\/p>\n But several challenges remain.\u00a0<\/b>Tiny robots cannot replicate a larger robot\u2019s workload. Although batteries are improving, they would need to be smaller and more powerful. Miniature parts that convert energy into robotic motion, called actuators, need to become more efficient. Sensors have to be even lighter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe start by looking at how insects solve these problems, and we\u2019re making a lot of progress,\u201d said Sawyer B. Fuller, an assistant professor who directs the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory at the University of Washington. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of things \u2026 we don\u2019t have yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Much of insect robot research can be divided into a few areas, researchers said. Some scientists build an entire robot to mimic the motion and size of real insects, such as bees and lightning bugs. Others put electronics on live insects and control them, essentially creating cyborgs (beings that have both organic and mechanical aspects). While some are experimenting with a hybrid \u2014 connecting parts of a live insect, such as an antennae, to a machine robot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Robotic engineers started looking to insects for inspiration about 10 to 15 years ago. At the time, few research labs were studying it. \u201cTen years ago, I frankly think it sounded more like science fiction,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n But over the years, more researchers have gotten into the space, largely because technology is advancing. Much of the activity has been driven by developments in carbon fibers and lasers, which can make \u201cvery fine features and complex structures\u201d at a small scale, Chen added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Electronic sensors have also gotten better, in large part because smartphones and smartwatches have spurred research to make tinier electronic parts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf you think about your smartphone, there are so many sensors within that,\u201d Chen said. \u201cYou can really leverage a lot of those sensors or put those sensors into micro-scale robots.\u201d<\/p>\n Kenjiro Fukuda, a researcher at Japan\u2019s Riken Thin-Film Device Laboratory, leads a team that is strapping 3D-printed sensors onto live Madagascar hissing cockroaches. The sensors function like a tiny backpack containing solar panels for power. It has a Bluetooth sensor for remote control and specialized computers that connect to the cockroach\u2019s abdomen and send tiny shocks to direct it left or right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fukuda envisions these cyborg cockroaches helping in emergency situations, such as an earthquake. Survivors might be in the rubble and hard to spot with the naked eye, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The cockroaches could be remote-controlled and released into the rubble with carbon dioxide sensors and cameras on their backs, helping find people that need saving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBig people cannot enter under the rubble,\u201d Fukuda said. \u201cSmall insects or small robots can.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fukuda said he could also apply this approach to other insects with large shells, such as beetles and cicadas. But many improvements need to be made to battery design and how much power the parts consume before this solution is deployed in real life, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When it comes to cyborg insects, not everyone is excited. Jeff Sebo, an animal bioethics professor at New York University, said he worries how live insects might feel being controlled by humans while carrying heavy technology. It\u2019s unclear if they feel pain or distress from it, he said, but that doesn\u2019t mean humans should ignore that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not even paying lip service to their welfare or rights,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not even going through the motion of having laws or policies or review boards in place so that we can halfheartedly try to reduce the harms that we impose on them.\u201d<\/p>\n Chen is creating flying lightning bug robots. These are fully robotic machines that mimic the ways lightning bugs move, communicate and fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Inspired by the way lightning bugs use electroluminescence to glow and communicate in real life, Chen\u2019s team built soft artificial muscles for flying that control robot wings and emit colored light during flight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This could enable a swarm of these robots to communicate with one another, Chen said, and they could be used to pollinate crops in vertical farms or even in space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf I want to grow crops in space, [I want] pollination,\u201d he said. \u201cIn that scenario, a flying robot would be much, much more suitable than sending bees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fuller, of the University of Washington, said he looks to insects when creating tiny robots because it\u2019s far better than relying on his imagination. \u201cYou see insects doing crazy things that you would just never be able to do at human scale,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just look at how insects do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Fuller\u2019s team is working to construct a robotic fly. Similar to the cyborg cockroaches, the flies could be used in search-and-rescue missions. They could also be unleashed to fly around and look for chemical leaks in the air or cracks in piping infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cYou open a suitcase and these little robotic flies fly around,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, once you know where the leak is, you can patch it.\u201d<\/p>\n Fuller said he acknowledges there is a long way to go before his robots can do that. It will be difficult to miniaturize all the sensors, power packs and parts needed for robots to move and send data back to teams. Making batteries that are small enough but powerful enough to emit energy needed for robotic functions is a daunting challenge. Stabilizing robots that can flap their wings and fly but also carry sensors will take more design research.<\/p>\n Despite the difficulties,\u00a0<\/b>he said that scientists are also working to take parts of a live insect, such as moth antennae, and attach them to a robot that could one day read data from it. This hybrid method could be a sweet spot for insect robot researchers, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s the path to go,\u201d Fuller added. \u201cTake bits of the biology that really works well and do the rest robotically.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/imrs-1.webp\")
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