28-01-2013, 03:17 PM
Cyborg Beetles: The Remote Radio Control of Insect Flight
Cyborg Beetles.pdf (Size: 2.69 MB / Downloads: 34)
ABSTRACT
Recently, we demonstrated the remote control of insects
in free flight via an implantable radio-equipped
miniature neural stimulating system. This paper
summarizes these results. 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 freeflight
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.
INTRODUCTION
This paper summarizes the work in [24-27]; my
talk will review our body of work and discuss
developments in progress. The most complete
description of this work to date is [27].
Micro and nano air vehicles (MAV’s / NAV’s) —
defined as aircraft with total mass less than 100 g and
wingspans less than 15 cm [1-4] — are the subject of
intense research and development. Despite major
advances, M/NAV’s still present significant trade-offs
between payload mass, flight range, and speed.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Flight initiation, cessation and modulation [27]
In Cotinis texana, alternating positive and negative
potential pulses between an electrode implanted into
the brain and a counter electrode implanted into the
posterior pronotum of the adult insect reproducibly
generated flight initiation and cessation in fullytethered
and weakly-tethered Cotinis beetles. For each
insect there was a voltage threshold for flight initiation
(median 3.2 V). Below this voltage, legs stretched or
contracted but flight did not start.
During flight, body pitch and wing oscillation
frequency could be manipulated by modulating the
wing oscillations with the neural stimulator. For
Cotinis texana, we observed that progressively
shortening the time between positive and negative
pulses led to a ‘throttling’ of flight where the beetle’s
normal 76 Hz wing oscillation was strongly modulated
by the 0.1 – 10 Hz applied stimulus.
Given the initial data from Cotinis, we chose to
extend this study to control of beetles in free flight; this
required a slightly larger beetle to carry our radioequipped
system (RF receiver + battery = 1331 mg). As
with Cotinis, we first determined the optimal
stimulation potential amplitude required to start and
stop flight in tethered Mecynorhina torquata.
CONCLUSIONS
Our results demonstrate that it is possible to
reliably control flight initiation and cessation and
modulate flight throttle and direction with a relatively
simple interface. To our knowledge, this is one of the
first reports of reliable, tetherless neuro-stimulated
flight control of insects.