Cyborg Cockroaches With Micro-Computers On Their Backs Skillfully Avoid Obstacles

Professor Hirotaka Sato and his team at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore placed micro-computers on the backs of Madagascar hissing cockroaches to control their movements remotely. These cyborg cockroaches skillfully avoided obstacles on different terrains, making them very useful in a variety of emergency situations while working in tandem with larger robots.

A swarm of remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches can navigate to a target location while avoiding obstacles and each other. Researchers say that such swarms could be contained inside large robots and released on cue to do jobs that would take too long for a single machine, such as taking sensor readings or hunting for specific objects.