{"id":11292,"date":"2009-09-28T12:11:22","date_gmt":"2009-09-28T12:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptogon.com\/?p=11292"},"modified":"2009-09-28T12:25:07","modified_gmt":"2009-09-28T12:25:07","slug":"berkley-and-darpa-cyborg-beetle-piloted-by-remote-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/?p=11292","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley and DARPA: Cyborg Beetle Piloted by Remote Control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Via: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2009\/09\/video-cyborg-beetle-takes-flight\/\">Wired<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/PAeV96bTRiI&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/PAeV96bTRiI&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><em>The creation of a cyborg insect army has just taken a step closer to reality. A research team at the University of California Berkeley recently announced that it has successfully implanted electrodes into a beetle allowing scientists to control the insect\u2019s movements in flight. \u201cWe demonstrated the remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radioequipped miniature neural stimulating system,\u201d the researchers reported in their new paper for Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. \u201d The pronotum mounted system consisted of neural stimulators, muscular stimulators, a radio transceiver-equipped microcontroller and a microbattery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The research, supported by the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is part of a broader effort, called the HI-MEMS program, which has been looking specifically at different approaches to implanting micro-mechanical systems into insects in order to control their movements.<\/p>\n<p>A number of research teams working on this ambitious project have reported specific successes. For example, researchers at the University of Michigan have demonstrated implants in a flying moth, but the Berkeley scientists appear to have demonstrated an impressive degree of control over their insect\u2019s flight; they report being able to use an implant for neural stimulation of the beetle\u2019s brain to start, stop, and control the insect in flight. They could even command turns by stimulating the basalar muscles.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the mind-controlled insects could be used to \u201cserve as couriers to locations not easily accessible to humans or terrestrial robots,\u201d they note.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>More:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/integrativeneuroscience\/paper\/10.3389\/neuro.07\/024.2009\/\">Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience: Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em>We demonstrated the remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radio-equipped miniature neural stimulating system. The pronotum mounted system consisted of neural stimulators, muscular stimulators, a radio transceiver-equipped microcontroller and a microbattery. Flight initiation, cessation and elevation control were accomplished through neural stimulus of the brain which elicited, suppressed or modulated wing oscillation. Turns were triggered through the direct muscular stimulus of either of the basalar muscles. We characterized the response times, success rates, and free-flight trajectories elicited by our neural control systems in remotely-controlled beetles. We believe this type of technology will open the door to in-flight perturbation and recording of insect flight responses.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via: Wired: The creation of a cyborg insect army has just taken a step closer to reality. A research team at the University of California Berkeley recently announced that it has successfully implanted electrodes into a beetle allowing scientists to control the insect\u2019s movements in flight. \u201cWe demonstrated the remote control of insects in free [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,31,3,12,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atrocities","category-mind-control","category-rise-of-the-machines","category-technology","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptogon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}