Cyborgbug to the Rescue!

Published on Tuesday, 31 January 2012 09:26

	By Mark Shadbolt Follow @Mark_Shadbolt

Rescue beetles fitted with new search and rescue technology may now be used to help locate trapped people after natural disasters.

New microscopic power conversion technology has paved the way for insects to hold cameras or sensors to be used for a whole variety of tasks.

The developer, Professor Khalil Najafi from the University of Michigan, said, "We could send these 'bugged' bugs into dangerous or enclosed environments."

The information they gather could be sent straight back to emergency services to deal with incidents more efficiently.

The team who developed the beetle's technology said the work will mark “a new era for search-and-rescue operations, surveillance, monitoring of hazardous substances, and detection of explosives".

The power would come from a thin layer of solar panels on the insect's back to give power to the sensory apparatus attached to it.

Solar panels would be useless as a power source when searching under the rubble though, so the team developed a way of converting the beetle's body heat and muscle movements into energy.

The energy generator contains a substance called PZT-5H, which builds electric charge when stress is applied to it, this means that whenever the beetle flies, it sustains the equipment it is carrying.

The two generators weighed less than 0.2 grams and generated 45 micro-watts of power during flight. Past attempts to obtain energy from muscular contractions have been less successful due to the machines involved weighting 1.28g which was too heavy for the insects to carry.

The new development also has military applications, the final intention would be that the animals could effectively become remote-controlled spies.

There has been research into building such a device from scratch rather than on an insect. However, during preliminary research, it was concluded  that an insect's manoeuvrability is far superior to its robotic equivalent.

The research was conducted by electrical and computer engineers, funded by the US government's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The beetles they tested were Green June Beetles and the generators were used on tethered flights. The team hope to have them ready for true test flights next year.

The technology is not yet patented and the researchers are looking for further investment, and hope that by next year the real value “micro wizard technology” will be truly understood.

Research has been made into the remote-control of animals, tests on rats have been used to control their movements using parts of their brain related to whiskers. Additionally, an attempt to manipulate sharks used the part of their brain related to smell.

Other means of insect control have been proposed in the past. DARPA once suggested that pupated insects were fitted with a microchip so that they will become controllable later, despite unsuccessful similar tests with wasps that saw scientists unable to control insects' desires to feed or mate.

DARPA are involved with many pioneering technologies, such as the precursor to the internet (Arpanet), minefields which automatically reconfigure themselves to spread evenly, programmes which connect soldiers directly to machines, mechanical jungle-penetrating elephants, and a computer game designed for US troops to recognise Iraqi soldier behaviour.