“This Cyborg Cockroach Could be the Future of Earthquake Search and Rescue”
December 10th, 2023Speaking of creatures carrying surveillance and remote control equipment…
— cryptogon (@cryptogon) December 9, 2023
Via: Nature:
Hirotaka Sato was in Tokyo when the earthquake struck in March 2011. The tremors destroyed tens of thousands of buildings and triggered a tsunami that battered Japan’s east coast, including the Fukushima nuclear power plant. More than 18,000 people died or were never found. As Sato watched desperate search-and-rescue missions unfold, he thought, “I need to develop the technology to save people.”
The solution he soon envisaged — and which has occupied him ever since — was a cyborg insect. He imagined a swarm of live creatures scurrying through the rubble, controlled when necessary by remotely operated electrodes implanted in the insects’ nervous systems. The creatures would carry mounted sensors capable of identifying survivors, along with transmitters to signal their location to rescue workers.
Sato — now an engineer at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore — has chosen the Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) as the basis for his rescue squad. These 5-centimetre-long creatures can carry up to 15 grams of mounted technology, which currently includes an infrared camera and a processor capable of detecting living people. Sato’s team can remotely steer the insects left, right and forwards, or leave them to autonomously navigate to programmed destinations.
