DARPA Researchers Rig Cyborg Beetles to Capture Energy That Powers Neuro Control Electronics
September 3rd, 2011The creature flaps its wings and generates power for the electronics that the remote operators use to control its flight.
Sound familiar?
Governments figured out this model long ago: Income tax, property tax, sales tax, fuel tax, fart tax, etc. They’ve got everyone coming and going, the system feeds on our activity through taxes and consumption, and this nourishes the controllers and social engineering mechanisms that keep the zombie consumer death machine running. Like the cyborg beetle, most people have no idea what’s happening.
Anyway, enjoy your weekend!
Via: PhysOrg:
For many years, researchers have been working on designing and fabricating micro-air-vehicles (MAVs), flying robots the size of small insects. But after realizing how difficult it is to create a tiny, lightweight flying vehicle capable of carrying a payload and being powered by a long-life onboard power source, some researchers have recently stopped trying to copy real-life insects and started using the insects themselves, with a few small tweaks. For instance, using tiny stimulators near their antennae, electrodes implanted in their central nervous systems, or neuromuscular interfaces, researchers have found that it’s easier to control insect’s brains – and therefore, flight – than to build robotic insects from scratch.
“Although we have seen a tremendous and exciting effort in MAV development in the last decade, cyborg insects are much more advantageous when it comes to the aerodynamic performance, flight duration, payload capability, and energy storage at miniaturized scales,” Ethem Erkan Aktakka from the University of Michigan told PhysOrg.com. “The current technology is simply not there yet to beat nature’s evolution over several thousands of years.”
So far, the neural control systems in cyborg insects have generally been powered by batteries. But now Aktakka and coauthors Hanseup Kim and Khalil Najafi from the University of Michigan (Kim is currently with the University of Utah), have developed an energy scavenger that generates power from the wing motion of a Green June Beetle during tethered flight. Two generators – one on each of the beetle’s wings – use piezoelectric devices to produce a total of 45 µW of power per insect. The researchers predict that this power could be increased by an order of magnitude through a direct connection between the generator and the insect’s flight muscles.
Related: The God of High Places
