A live beetle with electrodes wired up to its nervous system can made to take off and be steered like a remote-controlled aircraft
by Ewen Callaway
It's tempting to call them lords of the flies. For the first time, researchers have controlled the movements of free-flying insects from afar, as if they were tiny remote-controlled aircraft.
By connecting electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems of beetles, the researchers were able to make them take off, dive and turn on command. The cyborg insects were created at the University of California, Berkeley, by engineers led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz as part of a programme funded by the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The project's goal is to create fully remote-controlled insectsMovie Camera able to perform tasks such as looking for survivors after a disaster, or acting as the ultimate spy.
The Berkeley team implanted electrodes into the brain and muscles of two species: green June beetles called Cotinus texana from the southern US, and the much larger African species Mecynorrhina torquata. Both responded to stimulation in much the same way, but the weight of the electronics and their battery meant that only Mecynorrhina – which can grow to the size of a human palm – was strong enough to fly freely under radio control. …
Free-flying cyborg insects steered from a distance
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