Meet the Cyborg Beetles, Real Insects That Are Controlled Like Robots
by The Daily Eye Team December 1 2016, 5:57 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 27 secsThe future is crawling towards us on six legs. Motherboard traveled to Singapore to meet with Dr. Hirotaka Sato, an aerospace engineer at Nanyang Technological University. Sato and his team are turning live beetles into cyborgs by electrically controlling their motor functions.
Having studied the beetles' muscle configuration, neural networks, and leg control, the researchers wired the insects so that they could be controlled by a switchboard. In doing so, the researchers could manipulate the different walking gaits, speeds, flying direction, and other forms of motion.