Researchers Use Video Game Tech to Steer Roaches on Autopilot

North Carolina State University researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments – such as collapsed buildings.

Click to enlarge. (Photo credit: Alper Bozkurt)

The researchers have incorporated Microsoft’s motion-sensing Kinect system into an electronic interface developed at NC State that can remotely control cockroaches. The researchers plug in a digitally plotted path for the roach, and use Kinect to identify and track the insect’s progress. The program then uses the Kinect tracking data to automatically steer the roach along the desired path.

“Kinect-based System for Automated Control of Terrestrial Insect Biobots”
Authors: Eric Whitmire, Tahmid Latif and Alper Bozkurt, North Carolina State UniversityPresented: July 4, 2013, 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

Abstract: Centimeter scale mobile biobots offer unique advantages in uncertain environments. Our
previous experimentation has demonstrated neural stimulation techniques in order to control the
motion of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. These trials relied on stimulation by a human operator using a remote control. We have developed a Kinect-based system for computer operated automatic control of cockroaches. Using image processing techniques and a radio transmitter, this platform both detects the position of the roach biobot and sends stimulation commands to an implanted microcontroller-based receiver. The work presented here enables repeatable experimentation and allows precise quantification of the line following capabilities of the roach biobot. This system will help refine our model for the stimulation response of the insect and improve our ability to direct them in increasingly dynamic situations.

Remote control cockroach cyborgs

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique that uses an electronic interface to remotely control, or steer, cockroaches.

“Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces,” says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. “Ultimately, we think this will allow us to create a mobile web of smart sensors that uses cockroaches to collect and transmit information, such as finding survivors in a building that’s been destroyed by an earthquake.

“Building small-scale robots that can perform in such uncertain, dynamic conditions is enormously difficult,” Bozkurt says. “We decided to use biobotic cockroaches in place of robots, as designing robots at that scale is very challenging and cockroaches are experts at performing in such a hostile environment.”

Researchers were able to precisely steer the roaches along a curved line.

But you can’t just put sensors on a cockroach. Researchers needed to find a cost-effective and electrically safe way to control the roaches, to ensure the roaches operate within defined parameters – such as a disaster site – and to steer the roaches to specific areas of interest.

The new technique developed by Bozkurt’s team works by embedding a low-cost, light-weight, commercially-available chip with a wireless receiver and transmitter onto each roach (they used Madagascar hissing cockroaches). Weighing 0.7 grams, the cockroach backpack also contains a microcontroller that monitors the interface between the implanted electrodes and the tissue to avoid potential neural damage. 

The cerci are sensory organs on the roach’s abdomen, which are normally used to detect movement in the air that could indicate a predator is approaching – causing the roach to scurry away. But the researchers use the wires attached to the cerci to spur the roach into motion. The roach thinks something is sneaking up behind it and moves forward.

The wires attached to the antennae serve as electronic reins, injecting small charges into the roach’s neural tissue. The charges trick the roach into thinking that the antennae are in contact with a physical barrier, which effectively steers them in the opposite direction.

The paper, “Line Following Terrestrial Insect Biobots,” was presented Aug. 28 at the 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society in San Diego, Calif. The paper was authored by Tahmid Latif, a Ph.D. student at NC State, and co-authored by Bozkurt. Bozkurt has previously developed similar interfaces to steer moths, using implanted electronic backpacks.



REFERENCE
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-bozkurt-roach-autopilot/