Cockroach may help to search in Future

By fitting cockroaches with microphones and speakers, rescuers may be able to detect voices of people in trapped buildings.

Researchers at Nort Carolina State University say that they have developed a tracking system by which  cockroaches are used and they may actually perform search and rescue. They plotted a Parabolic path for cockroaches and tracked them using Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect. The sensor help them to control their path to go according to the researchers decision. 

Researchers nudged the roaches into motion with wires attached to the bugs' sensory appendages, and they steered the roaches by sending small electrical impulses to wires attached to the bugs' antennae. The old-fashioned horse and whip are just so crude by comparison.

The program uses Kinect to collect data on how the roaches respond to the electrical impulses from the remote-control interface. This data will help the researchers fine-tune the steering parameters needed to control the roaches more precisely.

“Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that,” says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. Researchers attached a video in the report  and we see the controlled path of the cockroach and they continue controlled either left or right to stay in the correct way.

Cockroach is controlled using sensors

There is another link where they previously developed the technology that would allow users to steer cockroaches remotely, but the use of Kinect to develop an autopilot program and track the precise response of roaches to electrical impulses is new. The video link is here.

"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," said co-author Alper Bozkurt in a school news release. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."

Bozkurt and company plan to present their findings at the Remote Controlled Insect Biobots Minisymposium at the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society on July 4 in Osaka, Japan.

 

Sources: 1. cnet.com 

               2. news.ncsu.edu

              Images from news.ncsu.edu