Tag Archives: swarm

Revolutionary Remotely Controlled Swarm of Cockroaches Can Now Breathe Underwater

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Cyborg cockroach designed for underwater exploration

Cyborg Cockroach in Underwater Breathing Suit

Credit: NTU Singapore

Innovative research on cyborg insects shows that swarms of remotely controlled cockroaches can survive underwater with the help of specially designed diving suits, potentially paving the way for exploration on Mars.

Hirotaka Sato and his team at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have successfully demonstrated that hissing cockroaches (Glomphadrina Portentosa) can be remotely controlled through electrical implants in their sensory organs. Their research in 2021 showcased the feasibility, while 2024 saw a breakthrough with a swarm of 20 cooperating insects.

The primary goal was to create biological robots with infrared sensors to assist in search and rescue operations following natural disasters. Cockroaches offer effective locomotion, built-in reflexes, and the potential for energy efficiency, making them ideal candidates for such tasks.

Despite their versatility, the researchers faced challenges with the insects’ ability to explore flooded environments, common during disasters. To overcome this, they developed an aquatic suit enabling underwater operations.

Cockroaches breathe through spiracles located in their abdomen and thorax. The team created a waterproof suit using 3D printed resin, safeguarding the abdominal spiracles from water. A small hose connects the suit to the thoracic spiracle, allowing oxygen absorption.

Instead of traditional scuba gear, the suit uses a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and manganese dioxide, producing oxygen through a chemical reaction that the cockroaches can utilize.

While wearing the suit, the cockroaches were capable of submerging up to 50 centimeters for three hours, demonstrating resilience and health after the experiment.

The suit enabled the cyborg insects to swim naturally, achieving a forward speed of 87.5 millimeters per second on land, and just slightly slower at 78.4 millimeters underwater.

Sato envisions that this technology could aid search and rescue missions and possibly one day be adapted for extraterrestrial environments where oxygen is scarce, such as Mars.

The research team plans to further test the cockroach suits under severe conditions found in space, including extreme temperatures, vacuum, and radiation. However, concerns regarding contamination with Earth-based microorganisms remain a hurdle for potential space missions.

According to Alan Winfield, a professor at the University of the West of England, the applications for underwater-cyborg bio-robots extend to environmental monitoring and other crucial tasks.

While small robots struggle with battery life, cockroaches can operate efficiently for extended periods without the need for refueling, highlighting the advantages of biological systems over mechanical ones.

Topics:

  • Space Exploration/
  • Robotics

Source: www.newscientist.com

Microrobot swarm replicates incredible ant feats

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Robots the size of a grain of sand work together like ants

Jung Jae-wi et al.

Swarms of small robots guided by magnetic fields can coordinate and act like ants, even swarming to form floating rafts or lifting objects hundreds of times their weight. The microrobots, which are about the size of a grain of sand, could one day be able to perform tasks that larger robots cannot, such as unclogging blood vessels or delivering drugs to specific parts of the human body.

Jung Jaewi and his colleagues at South Korea's Hanyang University built the tiny, cubic-shaped robot using a mold and epoxy resin embedded with a magnetic alloy. These tiny magnetic particles allow the microrobot to be “programmed” to form different configurations after being exposed to a strong magnetic field from a specific angle. The bot is controlled by an external magnetic field and can perform rotations and other movements. This approach allowed the team to “efficiently and quickly manufacture hundreds to thousands of microrobots” with magnetic profiles designed for specific missions, Wee said.

The researchers instructed swarms of microrobots to work together to overcome obstacles five times higher than individual microrobots and form floating rafts on water. The bot also punched through a clogged tube and transported tablets weighing 2000 times their individual weight through a liquid, demonstrating potential medical applications.

“These magnetic microrobots hold great promise for minimally invasive drug delivery in confined, confined spaces,” he says. small guangdong from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee was not involved in the study. However, microrobots are not yet capable of autonomously navigating complex and narrow spaces such as arteries.

There are also safety challenges, Dong said, including the need to coat “potentially toxic” magnetic particles with human-friendly materials. Still, he says he's optimistic about future medical applications for such microrobots. When safe, bots can “effectively travel to targeted disease sites and deliver drugs locally,” making treatments more precise and effective.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

NASA conducts swarm experiment with Starling CubeSats

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NASA’s Starling mission will test new technologies for autonomous swarm navigation on four CubeSats in low Earth orbit.Credit: NASA Ames Research Center

NASAThe four Starling spacecraft, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, have successfully completed commissioning and are now in group experiment configuration. The spacecraft successfully completed several mission activities aimed at advancing satellite constellation technology.

Payload commissioning was delayed due to several anomalies that the team had to investigate.
GPS Satellite data is included more than expected at the spacecraft-to-payload interface. Software updates have resolved most of these issues and the CubeSat has begun its planned work.

Starling’s mission will include network communications between spacecraft, maintaining relative navigation and understanding each satellite’s position, autonomous swarm reconfiguration and reconfiguration to ensure the swarm can adapt as it moves as a group. It includes four main features of decentralized scientific autonomy: maintenance, and proving the ability to coordinate experiments. own activities.

NASA’s six-month Starling mission will use a team of four CubeSats in low-Earth orbit to test technologies that allow spacecraft to operate synchronously without using resources from the ground. This technology will advance capabilities in swarm maneuver planning and execution, communications networking, relative navigation, and autonomous coordination between spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Conceptual Image Lab/Ross Walter

NASA’s Starling Mission

NASA’s Starling mission represents a significant advance in the field of satellite technology. The mission features a group of small satellites named Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, known as CubeSats. These CubeSats are designed to operate in swarms and demonstrate advanced concepts in autonomous satellite interaction.

The main objectives of the Starling mission are:

  1. Network communication: CubeSats have the ability to communicate with each other, forming complex networks in space. This allows for coordinated activities and data sharing between satellites.
  2. Relative navigation: A key feature of this mission is that each CubeSat can accurately understand its position relative to other CubeSats. This ensures precise maneuvering and positioning within the swarm.
  3. Autonomous Swarm reconfiguration: Satellites can autonomously reconfigure their positions within the swarm. This capability is critical to adapting to varying mission requirements and maintaining optimal formation during operations.
  4. Autonomy of decentralized science: CubeSats can independently coordinate experimental activities. This feature indicates the potential for future space missions to adapt and respond to environmental changes and mission objectives without requiring direct intervention from Earth.

Through these innovative CubeSats, the Starling mission aims to improve the understanding and capabilities of satellite constellation technology and potentially revolutionize the way we approach space exploration and satellite operations.

Source: scitechdaily.com