Roaches going cyber - scientists creates super durable insect robot

[williamcll]

Swiss scientists have created small robots with incredible resistance to damage, they hope it could be developed into swarms that could operate various tasks in the future.

Quote

A new soft robotic insect could one day form part of a swarm designed to perform a number of different tasks. A team from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland developed the insect and showed it is incredibly durable, even when being battered by a flyswatter.

 

Publishing its findings to Science Robotics, the team said the insect – called DEAnsect – is propelled 3cm per second by artificial muscles. Two versions were produced: one tethered with ultra-thin wires, the other being untethered and autonomous weighing less than 1g, including its battery and components. It comes equipped with a microcontroller for a brain and photodiodes as eyes, allowing it to recognise black and white patterns, enabling DEAnsect to follow any line drawn on the ground. In addition to being able to withstand a number of whacks from a flyswatter, the insect can also deal with being folded or squashed with a shoe without being impaired. DEAnsect moves forward using dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), a type of hair-thin artificial muscle that propels it forward through vibrations. This makes the insect light and quick, as well as allowing it to scale various terrains, including undulated surfaces. These artificial muscles contain an elastomer membrane sandwiched between two soft electrodes. When a voltage is applied, the electrodes are attracted to each other, compressing the membrane and returning to its original shape when switched off. Turning the muscles on and off 400 times a second allows the insect to move. Each of the insect’s legs have three of these muscles. By using nanofabrication techniques, the EPFL team could use relatively low voltages by reducing the thickness of the elastomer membrane and by developing soft, highly conductive electrodes only a few molecules thick.

In doing so, the power source could be shrunk down significantly until the point where the whole insect weighs 0.2g.

 

“This technique opens up new possibilities for the broad use of DEAs in robotics, for swarms of intelligent robotic insects, for inspection or remote repairs, or even for gaining a deeper understanding of insect colonies by sending a robot to live amongst them,” said Herbert Shea of the research team

“We’re currently working on an untethered and entirely soft version with Stanford University. In the longer term, we plan to fit new sensors and emitters to the insects so they can communicate directly with one another.”

Source: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/invincible-robotic-insect

https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/4/37/eaaz6451

Thoughts: I could see some commercial applications to these machines but not so much with the average person, and there better be a way to destroy these critters if they go rogue.

[Doobeedoo]

Cyber Zerg

PogU

[RejZoR]

The last thing we need are terminator roaches...

[amdorintel]

what we need are little robot insects to kill mesquito's and bee's and wasps and larva and other flying pests that invade our patios and campsites

[mr moose]

 

Fifth element?

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/21/2019 at 9:38 PM, amdorintel said:

what we need are little robot insects to kill mesquito's and bee's and wasps and larva and other flying pests that invade our patios and campsites

Well technically humans and their patios and campsites are the invaders because the insects were there first. Undoubtedly. 

 

[amdorintel]

11 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Well technically humans and their patios and campsites are the invaders because the insects were there first. Undoubtedly. 

 

so were the native peoples

 

on another note: them insects do serve a purposeful role, maybe just a manageable culling is in order

super-mini robots that take out all insects within a certain distance

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, amdorintel said:

on another note: them insects do serve a purposeful role,

Exactly, which is why I found saying they're "pests"  rather disturbing.  

 

4 hours ago, amdorintel said:

maybe just a manageable culling is in order

super-mini robots that take out all insects within a certain distance

That is actually a good idea though and probably a theoretical use case... 

 

So they murder only insects in your garden / patio / house... that would be useful I admit - though you would still have the little issue of not pollinated plants then... Although that could then probably be the second job of those robo roaches I guess !  

[Froody129]

29 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Stop fantasizing. This thing is never taking on insects.

 

It does not even have the mobility of an insect. It basically vibrates itself to move. There is no adhesion to the surface like what insects are capable of. It can't cross rough terrain or small gaps.

 

No AI is required for it to stay within a black & white circuit. It can't even carry a power source good enough to power radio communications, let alone the sensors required for it to do any meaningful work. And adding on components will raise the weight to the point where its mode of travel simply fails.

 

Whatever you think it might be used for, you have to consider the size and weight of the required components. For it to be autonomous it requires components. Add those components and can the 'insect robot' even move at that point? Would it be small enough to even be called an 'insect robot' any more?

Everything has to begin somewhere. Give it a chance

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Stop fantasizing. This thing is never taking on insects.

 

It does not even have the mobility of an insect. It basically vibrates itself to move. There is no adhesion to the surface like what insects are capable of. It can't cross rough terrain or small gaps.

 

No AI is required for it to stay within a black & white circuit. It can't even carry a power source good enough to power radio communications, let alone the sensors required for it to do any meaningful work. And adding on components will raise the weight to the point where its mode of travel simply fails.

 

Whatever you think it might be used for, you have to consider the size and weight of the required components. For it to be autonomous it requires components. Add those components and can the 'insect robot' even move at that point? Would it be small enough to even be called an 'insect robot' any more?

Things also never evolve...

 

That's how cars were invented "it'll never work... faster than horses... humbug...!"

[Trik'Stari]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:38 PM, amdorintel said:

what we need are little robot insects to kill mesquito's and bee's and wasps and larva and other flying pests that invade our patios and campsites

Mosquito's and wasps yes, bees no. We need the bees.

 

And if they could murder all the house flies that'd be great.

[Mark Kaine]

21 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Its like having a guy in the 1800's make a bird custome said "one day we will be able to fly" and then crediting him for the creation of airplanes

Actually.  Yes.

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/leonardo-da-vinci-and-flight

 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Yes you took the most prominent person when there are many others who made claims without any fundamental backing

 

Btw Leonardo Da Vinci did not make any working planes at all

Well,  I just tried to demonstrate that you can't just say this will never work - and as a proof for this claim use the fact it doesn't *currently* work... 

 

There's no reason to think they couldn't improve this thing... I think it's merely a concept right now anyway. 

 

Also I never said he did,  but he invented them nonetheless (also tanks and submarines btw,  which is just fascinating how visionary and ahead of his time he was) 

[amdorintel]

On 12/23/2019 at 2:46 PM, Mark Kaine said:

Exactly, which is why I found saying they're "pests"  rather disturbing.

you ever been to the Amazonian forests, or deep in the bush

billions upon billions of insects per square inch!