The newest search and rescue recruits are cockroaches. Scientists have outfitted the insects with capabilities to locate and administer medical care to people in remote or hard-to-reach locations. Different kinds of insects could be used for varied purposes and could be a valuable asset for disaster relief in the future.
Engineering and experimentation
Paramedic cyborg cockroaches called Paraborgs can be “field-deployable medical intervention,” said a study published in the journal Advanced Science. The robotic roaches “contain cameras and miniature medical injectors” that “could deliver supervised emergency care to people trapped in collapsed buildings, caves or other places too dangerous for rescuers to reach,” said a release about the study.
“A lot of people might not like the sight of a giant cockroach scurrying toward them,” said study co-author and Ph.D. candidate Hai Nhan Le in the release. “But if you are trapped in rubble or stuck in a cave and need help, it could make a real difference between life and death.”
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To create the cyborgs, scientists fitted North Queensland giant burrowing cockroaches (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), the “heaviest cockroach species in the world that measure up to 3.3 inches, with backpacks containing syringe cylinders and cameras,” said Reuters. They “start with anaesthetizing the insect, immobilizing them so that we make sure that they cannot feel anything during the implementation process,” said study co-author Thang Vo-Doan, a biorobotics engineer, to the outlet. “Once we implant an electrode into the insect, we can apply a small electrical signal to activate or stimulate the nerve system so that they can respond to our command.”
While promising, “one of the biggest engineering challenges was getting the cockroaches into the correct position for an injection,” said Interesting Engineering. The insect has to “navigate to the target, position itself accurately and remain stable enough to perform the injection,” said Le in the release.
The good news is that the Paraborgs had a 95% success rate at performing close-range injections in proof-of-concept experiments. “The long-term goal is targeted human-supervised intervention in places conventional medical technologies cannot access,” said Thanh Nho Do, a medical robotics associate professor at the University of New South Wales who worked on the study, in the release.
Harnessing nature
If cyborg insects can “safely enter spaces we can’t, locate casualties and ultimately help deliver emergency care, they could become another valuable tool in the future of urban search and rescue,” said Tim Hassiotis, the superintendent of Fire and Rescue New South Wales, in the release. Other insects could offer promising methods of search and rescue in the future. “Rather than building one robot to do everything, we can harness the natural strengths of different insects and equip them for different missions,” said Vo-Doan in the release.
“Ethical guidelines for invertebrate research are not yet standardized,” said the study. Still, the cockroaches were “provided with a suitable living environment” and “decent nutrition.”
This is also not the first time cockroaches have been fitted for other purposes. Scientists previously created tiny diving suits for Madagascar hissing cockroaches that could be used in perilous search operations, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. The suit contained electronic controllers to guide the cockroach and “allowed it to survive and operate in oxygen-deprived environments such as underwater” for up to three hours, “transforming it into an amphibious cyborg robot capable of operation across land and water.”
