Researchers have been working with tiny robots based on cockroaches as well as with actual roaches—controlled by an embedded chip— to explore collapsed buildings and other dangerous, hard-to-penetrate environments where the GPS doesn’t work
October 19, 2013 Leave a comment
Send In the Cockroach Squad
DANIEL AKST
Oct. 18, 2013 9:16 p.m. ET
Most people hate cockroaches, but in an earthquake, the bugs may someday prove to be lifesavers. Researchers have been working with tiny robots based on cockroaches as well as with actual roaches—controlled by an embedded chip—as a possible means of exploring collapsed buildings and other dangerous, hard-to-penetrate environments where the Global Positioning System doesn’t work.Now researchers at North Carolina State University have developed software that can map an unseen structure based on the known habits of robots or “biobots,” as the cyborg roaches are known, potentially enabling “a swarm robotic system to find and rescue survivors,” as the scientists put it in their paper.
Imagine a swarm of roaches equipped with electronic sensors and transmitters, and turned loose in a building felled by an earthquake. Scientists know that roaches tend to move about fairly randomly until they encounter a wall, at which point they follow the wall. Roaches are also known to stop when they encounter other roaches, and they hang out with the group for a while. After such collisions, they resume their random walks.
These natural behaviors are useful in exploiting roaches because biobot batteries don’t have much power, so sending the creatures a lot of instructions wastes precious energy.
Modeling the behavior of common German roaches by computer, the scientists found they could use the data generated by the roaches’ movements to quickly develop a rough and ready sketch of an unseen environment. “This would give first responders a good idea of the layout in a previously unmapped area,” said Edgar Lobaton, one of the scientists.
The next step is for the researchers to try out their software using real robots and, perhaps eventually, real roaches.
—”Topological Mapping of Unknown Environments Using an Unlocalized Robotic Swarm,” Alireza Dirafzoon and Edgar J. Lobaton, to be presented Nov. 3-8 at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Tokyo.
About bambooinnovator
Bamboo Innovator 