[Robotgroup] Cybugs

[Shane Geiger]

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3492529.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

The agency that the Pentagon set up to turn outlandish sci-fi concepts
into reality has come closer to creating an army – or air force – of
cybugs: cyber-moths and beetles that can spy on the enemy.

Inspired by Thomas Easton’s 1990 novel /Sparrowhawk/ in which animals
enlarged by genetic engineering were fitted with implanted control
systems, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) set out
to insert micro-systems into living insects as they undergo metamorphosis.

The plan is that their organs will grow around the chips and wires that
make up the remote-control devices.

Darpa’s goal is to create cyborg insects that can fly at least 100
metres from their controller and land within 5 metres of a target and
stay there until commanded to buzz off again.

Although this goal is still in the future, the agency has made
remarkable advances. In a series of videoclips shown at a conference in
Tucson, Arizona, /New Scientist/ reports, a tobacco hawkmoth with wires
connected to its back lifts and lowers one wing, then the other, then
both, in response to signals delivered to its flight muscles.

As the Darpa researchers increase the frequency of the muscle
stimulation the moth’s wings beat faster, approaching take-off speed. In
another clip the moth is flying, tethered from above, when electrical
impulses applied to muscles cause it to swerve left or right.


-- 
Shane Geiger
IT Director
National Council on Economic Education
sgeiger at ncee.net  |  402-438-8958  |  http://www.ncee.net

Leading the Campaign for Economic and Financial Literacy