Cyborg cockroaches come and just want to help

Heavy robots are limited in what they can do. Building smaller and more agile robots, similar to how insects move and act, could greatly expand the capabilities of robots.

“When we think about the insect functions that animals can’t perform,” said Kevin Chen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at MIT, “it inspires us to think about what smaller, insect-sized robots can do that larger robots can’t.”

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Most advances are in the research phase, years after commercialization. But they present enticing solutions for a range of industries, including emergency response, agriculture and energy.

Research is accelerating for several reasons, experts said. Electronic sensors are getting smaller and better, mostly due to smartwatch research. Manufacturing techniques have evolved, making it easier to construct tiny parts. Small battery technology is also improving.

But some challenges remain. Tiny robots cannot replicate the workload of a larger robot. Although batteries are getting better and better, they need to get smaller and more powerful. Miniature parts that convert energy into robotic motion, called actuators, need to become more efficient. Sensors have to become even lighter.

“We’re starting by studying how insects solve these problems, and we’re making great strides,” said Sawyer B. Fuller, an assistant professor who directs the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory at the University of Washington. “But there’s a lot of things…we don’t have yet.”

Much of insect robot research can be broken down into a few areas, the researchers said. Some scientists are building an entire robot to mimic the movement and size of real insects like bees and lightning beetles. Others place electronics on and control living insects, essentially creating cyborgs (beings that have both organic and mechanical aspects). While some are experimenting with a hybrid – joining parts of a living insect, such as a B. an antenna, with a machine robot.

Robotic engineers started taking inspiration from insects about 10 to 15 years ago. At the time, few research labs studied it. “Ten years ago, to be honest, I thought it sounded more like science fiction,” Chen said.

But over the years, more and more researchers have ventured into space, largely because technology is advancing. Much of the activity has been fueled by developments in carbon fibers and lasers, which can create “very fine features and complex structures” on a small scale, Chen added.

Electronic sensors have also gotten better, in large part because smartphones and smartwatches have spurred research into making smaller electronic parts.

“If you think about your smartphone, there are so many sensors in it,” Chen said. “You can actually use a lot of these sensors or build these sensors into micro-scale robots.”

Kenjiro Fukuda, a researcher at Japan’s Riken Institute Thin-Film Device Laboratory, is leading a team strapping 3D-printed sensors onto live hissing cockroaches from Madagascar. The sensors work like a tiny backpack that contains solar cells to power it; a Bluetooth sensor for remote control and specialized computers that connect to the roach’s abdomen and send tiny vibrations to steer it left or right.

Fukuda envisions these cyborg cockroaches that help out in emergency situations like an earthquake. Survivors could be lying in the rubble and difficult to see with the naked eye, he said.

The roaches could be released into the rubble remotely and with carbon dioxide sensors and cameras on their backs to find people who need to be rescued.

“Tall people can’t get in under the rubble,” Fukuda said. “Small insects or small robots can do that.”

Fukuda said he could apply this approach to other insects with large carapaces, such as beetles and planthoppers. But many improvements need to be made to battery design and how much power the parts use before this solution can be used in real life, he said.

When it comes to cyborg insects, not everyone is thrilled. Jeff Sebo, a professor of animal bioethics at New York University, said he worries about how living insects might feel controlled by humans while carrying heavy technology. It’s unclear if it causes them pain or distress, he said, but that doesn’t mean people should ignore it.

“We don’t even pay lip service to their welfare or their rights,” he said. “We don’t even go through the step of setting up laws or policies or review boards so we can half-heartedly try to mitigate the harm we’re doing to them.”

Chen builds flying lightning beetle robots. These are fully robotic machines that mimic the way Lightning Beetles move, communicate, and fly.

Inspired by the way lightning beetles use electroluminescence to glow and communicate in real life, Chen’s team built soft artificial flight muscles that control robotic wings and emit colored light during flight.

This could allow a swarm of these robots to communicate with each other, Chen said, and could be used to pollinate crops in vertical farms or even in space.

“If I want to grow crops in space, [I want] pollination,” he said. “In this scenario, a flying robot would be much, much better suited than sending bees.”

Fuller said he looks to insects when creating tiny robots because it’s far better than relying on his imagination. “You see insects doing crazy things that you could never do on a human scale,” he said. “We’re just looking at how insects do it.”

Fuller’s 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 looking for airborne chemical leaks or cracks in plumbing infrastructure.

“You open a suitcase and these little robot flies fly around,” he said. “Once you know where the leak is, you can patch it.”

Fuller said he concedes there’s still a long way to go before his robots can do that. It will be difficult to miniaturize all the sensors, power supplies, and parts that robots need to move and send data back to the teams. Making batteries small enough but powerful enough to deliver the energy needed for robotic functions is a daunting challenge. Stabilizing robots that can flap their wings and fly, but also carry sensors, requires more design research.

Despite the difficulties, He said scientists are also working on taking parts of a living insect, like moth antennae, and attaching 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.

“I think that’s the way to go,” Fuller added. “Take parts of the biology that work really well and robotically do the rest.”