IEEE Future Directions
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We have been able to develop amazing vehicles, millions of people are flying on comfortable airplanes that are -almost- autonomously flying, robots in the sky. Yet we are still far to create a really small vehicle, as small as an insect, with comparable capabilities.
The approach that some researchers have been pursuing is to use a real insect and to steer it to do what they want. More than ten years ago, in 2006, researchers at Tokyo University created the first cockroach cyborg implanting electrodes on the insect’s antennae and forcing it to move left, right, stop and go by tiny electrical impulses on the antennae. Over these last years this technology has become so easy to use that there are now “kits” for creating your own roboroach (I am not happy of this evolution, I am siding with the roaches on this, and I am not alone).
Hence, the news that Draper, a US based company, is developing an electronic backpack to control the flight of a dragonfly shouldn’t be anything really new to report. What is really new is the approach they have taken with their project DragonflEye.
They have teamed up with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to experiment on a way to genetically modify a dragonfly making its nerves sensitive to specific light wavelengths (optogenetics) and equipping the dragonfly with an opto-electronic backpack that can receive signals (instructions) from a radio link and convert them into optical signals affecting the brain of the dragonfly to steer it in doing specific actions (like flying in an intended direction, hoovering, …). The connection between the backpack and the dragonfly brain is made through specially developed optrodes (optical probes) implanted in the neural cord feeding signals in the brain. They have been able to create an extremely selective communication channel, thanks to optogenetics, where the optical signals are received only by the intended neurones (the one controlling the flight) without disturbing the others.
They are interested in perfecting this technology for possible application to patients with disabilities resulting from severed nerves.
Another application would be the monitoring of the honeybees, whose population is declining with devastating impact on US (and other Countries) economy -their contribution to the US economy is estimated in 15B$ a year.
Another possibility, that it is not mentioned by Draper but I would be surprised if it is not being considered, is to experiment with optrodes to find the right mix of neurones that are responsible for some sort of thinking, like: let’s look around to see if there is a mosquito larvae that I can have as dinner…
The possibility to experiment with brains opens up interesting, although potentially scaring, opportunities (and is fraught with ethical aspects).
This work is also a clear step forward in the creation of symbiotic autonomous systems …
