A pet dog sits on command, but nobody expects an insect to follow human instructions. So it may come as a surprise to learn that scientists recently succeeded in controlling cockroaches with tiny mobile robots. The results hint at a future where we can interact and communicate with a number of different kinds of animal.

Little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots or 'insbots' are technological marvels. Developed under the European Commission's Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme as the project Leurre, the insbots are fitted with two motors, wheels, a rechargeable battery, several computer processors, a light-sensing camera and an array of infrared proximity sensors.

When dropped into a small experimental area with a maze of curved walls, the robots, build by the project partner from the EPFL (Lausanne), move, turn and stop. They can navigate their way safely by avoiding the walls, obstacles or each other, follow the walls, congregate around a lamp beam or even line up. When placed in the same area with cockroaches, the robots quickly adapt their behaviour by mimicking the animals' movements. Coated with pheromones taken from roaches, the infiltrator robots even fool the insects into thinking they are real creatures.

The roach pheromones - a blend of molecules developed by the project partner from the Universite de Rennes I, France - enable various forms of communication, including recognition and attraction. For example, when a roach detects another roach, it may approach it, move away or stop. Cockroaches were chosen here because their pheromones are easier to manipulate than those found on other gregarious insects, such as ants.

Artificial agents meet natural agents.

As per coordinator Jean-Louis Deneubourg, from the Universite libre de Bruxelles, the project had its origins in collective intelligence and behaviour in animal society, as well as the tradition of using artificial agents to test theories about animals. "Robots have already been used to interact with some animals, such as bees. But they cannot react to the animals' response," he says. "In our project, the autonomous insbots call on specially developed algorithms to react to signals and responses from individual insects. This results in a chain action or reaction between the artificial and natural agents - a two-way interaction that is unique and very promising for sciences such as biology and robotics."

Not only did the insbots act like and interact with the insects, they even succeeded in changing the roaches' behaviour. For example, the darkness-loving insects followed their artificial cousins towards bright beams of light and congregated there. This process took up to two hours, but it showed how humans might soon be able to manipulate the behaviour of a whole colony of insects. A trick that would delight pest-controllers the world over!.



Posted by: Kelly    Source