Very cool and slightly distrubing as well. Maybe one day it will be able to help paralized people.
A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could one day be used for surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue missions.
Beetles and other flying insects are masters of flight control, integrating sensory feedback from the visual system and other senses to navigate and maintain stable flight, all the while using little energy. Rather than trying to re-create these systems from scratch, Michel Maharbiz and his colleagues aim to take advantage of the beetle's natural abilities by melding insect and machine. His group has previously created cyborg beetles, including ones that have been implanted with electronic components as pupae. But the current research, presented at the IEEE MEMS in Italy, is the first demonstration of a wireless beetle system.
The beetle's payload consists of an off-the-shelf microprocessor, a radio receiver, and a battery attached to a custom-printed circuit board, along with six electrodes implanted into the animals' optic lobes and flight muscles. Flight commands are wirelessly sent to the beetle via a radio-frequency transmitter that's controlled by a nearby laptop. Oscillating electrical pulses delivered to the beetle's optic lobes trigger takeoff, while a single short pulse ceases flight. Signals sent to the left or right basilar flight muscles make the animal turn right or left, respectively.
Most previous research in controlling insect flight has focused on moths. But beetles have certain advantages. The giant flower beetle's size--it ranges in weight from four to ten grams and is four to eight centimeters long--means that it can carry relatively heavy payloads. To be used for search-and-rescue missions, for example, the insect would need to carry a small camera and heat sensor.
In addition, the beetle's flight can be controlled relatively simply. A single signal sent to the wing muscles triggers the action, and the beetle takes care of the rest. "That allows the normal function to control the flapping of the wings," says Jay Keasling, who was not involved in the beetle research but who collaborates with Maharbiz. Minimal signaling conserves the battery, extending the life of the implant. Moths, on the other hand, require a stream of electrical signals in order to keep flying.
The research has been driven in large part by advances in the microelectronics industry, with miniaturization of microprocessors and batteries.
Shinova wrote:Clearly the next step is to adapt this technology to control humans! Bring it!!!!
Bah, that means we just need cybernetic implants in our brains which in addition to providing parallel processing and data storage features, include that bane of all people trying to turn the cybernetic future into a dystopia: The competent firewall installation.
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Dig around in SLAM to find a thread about neural whatchimacallits that *are* aimed at giving motion to the motionless.
Er, sorry I don't give a link... very tired,but figured I'd speak up and mention that you can find what youre looking for here...
I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
This is actually very clever .Why build a miniature flying robot from scratch if you can take one cheaply available and perfected over the millions of years and all you need is to rig up a suitable control system.
Once this technology is matured I can imagine remote controlled beetle being a must have toy for geeks.
This top-secret military biotech will then be used by Bush loyalists to infiltrate the White House in an attempt to spy on the (black) President. And then Barack Obama squishes the bug with his shoe.
It's amazing that they can control the bug's brain's flight centers. I mean, (if and) when this technology gets proliferated and becomes more popular, who can imagine the applications?
Smart bees, pollinating flower fields! Microchipped butterflies with genengineered reflective wings, flying in synchrony in their thousands, to the delight of children and onlookers! Amazing!
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This technology has been in the works for at least over a decade; I first got wind of it in an old issue of Owl magazine. I actually thought it had come along a lot further and was already more or less past field trials.
Solauren wrote:Remote controlled bugs that patrol your house eating other bugs!
Upgraded versions;
Instantly trained dogs + cats!
Yeah, were this technology avaliable and usable to such a degree I probably wouldn't use it to make creatures do what I wanted them do. Remember, the beetle doesn't really feel like flying left or right. It's almost a muscle spasm to it, and using it on more lucid creatures would probably freak them out and perhaps all sorts of unpleasant consequences for it.
Solauren wrote:Remote controlled bugs that patrol your house eating other bugs!
Upgraded versions;
Instantly trained dogs + cats!
Yeah, were this technology avaliable and usable to such a degree I probably wouldn't use it to make creatures do what I wanted them do. Remember, the beetle doesn't really feel like flying left or right. It's almost a muscle spasm to it, and using it on more lucid creatures would probably freak them out and perhaps all sorts of unpleasant consequences for it.
Obviously, before use on more intelligent creatures, you have to be able to over-ride that response, or make the command hit there brain, not the muscle.
THAT is probably decades away.
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It's so when they comment on or approve of something, I know what pages to block/what not to vote for.
Somehow I don’t think a giant beetle is going to cover enough distances to do ‘search and rescue’ unless the chopper crashed about 300 yards outside the base.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Sea Skimmer wrote:Somehow I don’t think a giant beetle is going to cover enough distances to do ‘search and rescue’ unless the chopper crashed about 300 yards outside the base.
That is, unless, we make it a beetle the size of an Abrams MBT. With lasers.
Sea Skimmer wrote:Somehow I don’t think a giant beetle is going to cover enough distances to do ‘search and rescue’ unless the chopper crashed about 300 yards outside the base.
That is, unless, we make it a beetle the size of an Abrams MBT. With lasers.
Sooo... what kind of theme are our biological monstrosities going to have? Zerg? Tyranid? Starship Troopers bugs?
I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
This is actually very clever .Why build a miniature flying robot from scratch if you can take one cheaply available and perfected over the millions of years and all you need is to rig up a suitable control system.
Bah, humans can build and desing better stuff than evolution - we can easily eleminate unneccessary stuff, a task which evolution often fails.
Of course, its still cheaper.
There was something similar to that a while ago, and lots of people i know screamed "they are going to controll humans next".
Which is crap, because the human brain is way more sophisticated than a bettle/rat.
Of course, simply cohntrolling muscles/nerves is easier - but you still have to capture your victim and make some heavy surgical stuff - creepy, but hardly horrifying.
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Solauren wrote:Actually, there are some insects in nature that are incredibly fast fliers, with good stamina as well.
Bee's come to mind.
Yes Bees are pretty impressive, but as a direct result in many species the workers live less then a week on average. That’s kind of an annoying practical problem unless you have a mobile corps level cyborg bee factory. Anyway I can see the value of an insect camera inside of buildings, but out doors, its really hard to see a role that wouldn’t be done better by simply a very small UAV.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Oberst Tharnow wrote:
Bah, humans can build and desing better stuff than evolution - we can easily eleminate unneccessary stuff, a task which evolution often fails.
Of course, its still cheaper.
There was something similar to that a while ago, and lots of people i know screamed "they are going to controll humans next".
Which is crap, because the human brain is way more sophisticated than a bettle/rat.
Of course, simply cohntrolling muscles/nerves is easier - but you still have to capture your victim and make some heavy surgical stuff - creepy, but hardly horrifying.
I hope you realise a lot of stuff we're using in our technology is derived from designs in nature. Humans designed multiple control-surface wings for planes, but the goal now is for efficient shape shifting ones like birds have. Saying it's human designed is no proof it is inherently superior than saying it's naturally designed. You judge on the merits of each system.
And what the hell is a "bettle"? Are we all having problems writing "beetle" today?
This is actually very clever .Why build a miniature flying robot from scratch if you can take one cheaply available and perfected over the millions of years and all you need is to rig up a suitable control system.
Bah, humans can build and desing better stuff than evolution - we can easily eleminate unneccessary stuff, a task which evolution often fails.
Of course, its still cheaper.
Well, currently insects still have far superior flight characteristics and endurance than than any comparable small UAV especially when it comes to hovering and flying inside confined spaces. Even aerodynamics regarding insect flight is not fully understood. I have no doubt that with time and sufficient R&D we will be able to build UAV robots with similar and better flight parameters, but currently it`s more effective to use insects with rigged up controls. Not to mention that for military applications like espionage insect rigged with remote control and miniature camera is much more inconspicuous than mechanical UAV.
I'm also not sure this could be developed beyond certain insects.
Am i right a key part of the process is introducing the electrodes at the pupa stage, so the adult body forms around them?
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Shinova wrote:Clearly the next step is to adapt this technology to control humans! Bring it!!!!
Bah, that means we just need cybernetic implants in our brains which in addition to providing parallel processing and data storage features, include that bane of all people trying to turn the cybernetic future into a dystopia: The competent firewall installation.
Actually what they did in the OP has already been done with humans, well sort of. Basically some Japanese scientists made a helmet/headphone looking contraption that could alter the balance organ in the inner ear.
Basically the volunteer wearing the thing would feel as if the ground was tilting and subconsciously correct their center of balance, and thus ending up walking in the direction the scientist pushed the joystick. (they even used an of-the-shelf RC-car remote to control them lol)
"
- PeZook
