Bio Bots

Researchers have developed a combination of software and hardware that will allow them to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and insect cyborgs, or bio bots, to map large, unfamiliar areas -- such as collapsed buildings after a disaster.

This is a picture that a team from North Carolina State University has developed these bugs which will be unmanned and able to search areas that people cannot reach. These are replicas of what the models are going to look like and sustain harsh conditions.

This team has developed both hardware and software for this little robot to do amazing things. "The idea would be to release a swarm of sensor-equipped bio bots -- such as remotely controlled cockroaches -- into a collapsed building or other dangerous, unmapped area," says Edgar Lobaton, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of two papers describing the work. 

The bio bots would be allowed to move freely within a defined area and would signal researchers via radio waves whenever they got close to each other. Custom software would then use an algorithm to translate the bio bot sensor data into a rough map of the unknown environment.Once the program receives enough data to map the defined area, the UAV moves forward to hover over an unexplored section. The bio bots move with it, and the mapping process is repeated. The software program then stitches the new map to the previous one. This can be repeated until the entire region or structure has been mapped; that map could then be used by first responders or other authorities.

To research their robots to effectively be able to work in the field that created a maze and threw them in the maze. The UAV beacon was designated as an overhead camera and a boundary used my a cart. 

A scientist that created it saying it best saying, "We had previously developed proof-of-concept software that allowed us to map small areas with bio bots, but this work allows us to map much larger areas and to stitch those maps together into a comprehensive overview," Lobaton says. "It would be of much more practical use for helping to locate survivors after a disaster, finding a safe way to reach survivors, or for helping responders determine how structurally safe a building may be.