Can insects be spare parts?

This cyber platform carries up to 9 grams of payload.

Take a caterpillar. At some point, she begins to remake herself into a butterfly. The question is simple: is it possible to give it synthetic components for assembly, which will make it possible to obtain a cyborg insect ? The answer is yes, you can. And Michel Maharbiz did it.

When this scientist from Berkeley created the first cyborg beetle, the military immediately came to him (DARPA) and asked if he was going to kill people, plus what would happen if his beetle ran away and began to multiply wildly.
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Makharbiz explained that he does not kill people, does not plan to do dangerous insects (so far), and is not afraid of reproduction, because the cyborg does not transmit instructions for its assembly during sex. He explained to the animal rights advocates that he does not torture the beetles, and there were no complaints from them about ill-treatment. True, he is now considering the ethical aspects of the use of insects as components for electronics, but this is the tenth thing.

Media selection

Makharbiz took the beetles as a basis. The choice is quite interesting: the fact is that the biological design of the beetle is such that it contains something like a rechargeable battery and can carry 20% more than its weight. That is, in the beetle there is a reserve for upgrades and features, plus a battery that feeds it for a long time and opens up some freedom of use.

Control technology

Simply put, beetles are controlled through certain resonant frequencies. Different events with muscles cause different stimulation of the resonance of the shell, which, in turn, activates the actions of other specific groups of muscles. By controlling the resonance, you can give commands to the beetle.

Makharbiz took and inserted into the beetle optical stimulators in the brain and electrical stimulators in a couple of major muscles. The first type of interaction is the work with the brain: to begin and complete vibrations. The second type is the stimulation of the basal muscle on each side for turns. Roughly speaking, when this muscle in a beetle stiffens, the beetle fully understands that it has a turn - and starts to do it. Something like an interrupt system.

Later, the system was transformed into a microantenna, a microcontroller that has a receiver-transmitter and a small microphone in order to listen to the oscillations for the synchronization of the wings (the beetle flies in a very complex pattern, therefore it is extremely important). We connected the Wii as a remote and started playing the bug.

The first thing that turned out to be - there is some place in the brain of the beetle, which gives a 98% chance of correctly executing the command to “start” and “stop” the beetle. Depending on the signal, the beetle's biosystem adapts to the flight position, for example, and enters a cycle where it cannot stop until the signal stops. It so happened to learn to control the beetle through two channels: "flew-landed" and "turn right - turn left."

Given that there are bugs that can carry 7-9 grams of payload, it is clear why at about this moment the military was keenly interested in Maharbiz and biology in general.

Restrictions

It is clear that the beetle, even upgraded to the proud title of cyborg, is not a robot, so it’s impossible to calibrate the system for sure. Control errors differ from insect to insect: the fact is that each cyborg has its own biological balancing system, plus its own nervous system, which has been lined up for generations to react to different impulses from the outside world. The beetles are trivially different, so without an intermediate link in the chain of control acting as a synchronizer-calibrator, the same reaction cannot be achieved.

Another problem stems from the same nervous system. Management is still low-level, that is, it affects the base levels of exposure. A cyborg in the process of fulfilling a responsible mission may be interested in a flower, “a bug of the opposite sex” or something else interesting and important - and this will immediately destroy the system of priorities, or simply cause extraneous activity. In the end, no one explained the beetle about scientists and the Pentagon, so he tries to live somehow himself.

Continued research

Then the colleagues of Makharbiza found the muscle scleritis, which alone was responsible for managing the flight. Having modeled an insect on a special installation, it was possible to increase the accuracy of control - and no longer at the level of direct exposure, but, roughly speaking, by physiological influence directing the “thoughts” of the beetle. Now, scientists do not have enough feedback from insect sensory systems for precise control, but this is already being solved.

Let's make a player out of it?

Digital miniaturization is very closely related to biology. Biological systems are widely available in nature, they are cheap and easy to reproduce. Many organisms, plus they can be displayed to the desired stage. The result - already now it is possible to use some insects as components for various equipment. For example, they already have a built-in gyroscope, a flying unit, and typical sensors.

Imagine the situation: when setting up a stream, an insect-driven platform can be made, for example, about 1000 rubles, plus about 3-4 thousand the base station is worth controlling. This very crude use of an insect may well be first entertainment, and then - the industry.

Let's go further. You can begin to produce a variety of strange things that will be a mixture of living and inanimate chains. Synthetic control networks and biological components are already a reality, and a bit scary. And this is exactly what Maharbiz is doing right now in Berkeley.


Perhaps one such already flies behind you.

And now we get control over the neurosystems

You can insert a cyberimplant into the pupa at the stage when it is formed (not too early - it will die, and not too late - it will be rejected). Japanese scientists have conducted research on the implantation of microcontrollers in the head of an insect. When this thing developed, the controller became an ideal control system to which it was possible to connect all the necessary peripherals and power. The media panicked, but then there was not much practical sense in the discovery.

After a year and a half in Berkeley, there was a way to embed an interface into the butterfly, through which neurons passed to the eye. The hypothesis was checked: a perforated flexible polymer was implanted into the pupa, which gave an amazing fusion. The eye was formed correctly, but so that the neurons passed through the implant - and this implant could remove data from them. Simply put, it turned out to create a technology for recording images from the eye (although it is not clear at the input that you still need to decode the “protocol” of data transmission inside the insect).

An insect with such an implant behaves normally and responds normally to the outside world, including among its own kind. Now the Maharbiza group is recording neural events and analyzing data. It is planned to reduce the interface for recording more events. The dream is to collect all the data from insect sensors and use them for automated control and other tasks.

And batteries too

The next breakthrough is the fuel cell on the insect. Scientists have modified the glucose fuel cell and installed it on the beetle. The beetle feeds glucose into the body (it feeds on products with it), the cell produces electricity for other beetle cyber systems. Now this cell works for several weeks and gives 10-20 μW. In the future - a couple of years and 100mW. You can and more, you need more advanced technology or more cells in the insect. Radio transmitters can already be assembled without too much difficulty, just expensive.


Makharbiz transmits greetings to Habra on signal tests from Berkeley. Now he is showing a new beetle from Thailand: something useful can be gathered from it.

Links

• A recent lecture in Russian and English in Digital October (there is a lot about insect construction and the essence of biotechnological research);
• About Michelle at Berkeley;
• News about DARPA and interest in beetles;
• Video with a test beetle in alpha.

And finally: now in the laboratory of these wonderful people the project of a neuro system is spinning, which will produce dust at the exit. It is planned to be applied to the skin in order to establish an interface, for example, with a cell phone. Welcome to the future.

PS Here are the following free lectures at Digital October - the closest one about what a project should be like in order to be invested in it, and a little further - about EQ .