IEEE Spectrum: Cyborg Moth Gets a New Radio

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Cyborg Moth Gets a New Radio By Sally Adee

First Published February 2009

Research reported this week advances the goal of turning insects into unmanned aerial vehicles

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10 February 2009—Attempts by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create cybernetic insects (hybrids of biological and electronic bugs) have yielded ultralow-power radios to control the bugs’ flight and a method of powering those circuits by harvesting energy, according to research that will be reported this week at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC)

Two papers being presented at ISSCC reveal the latest initiatives in the DARPA-sponsored Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) project, which is currently in its third year. The program’s goal is the creation of moths or other insects that have electronic controls implanted inside them, allowing them to be controlled by a remote operator. The animal-machine hybrid will transmit data from mounted sensors, which might include low-grade video and microphones for surveillance or gas sensors for natural-disaster reconnaissance. To get to that end point, HI-MEMS is following three separate tracks: growing MEMS-insect hybrids, developing steering electronics for the insects, and finding ways to harvest energy from the them to power the cybernetics.

Researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, in Ithaca, N.Y.—which is one of the contractors on the HI-MEMS project—presented progress on the first goal at the IEEE MEMS 2009 conference in Italy two weeks ago, describing silicon neural interfaces for gas sensors that were inserted into insects during the pupal phase. At ISSCC, the HI-MEMS projects focused on new chip technology for the second two goals: Researchers led by DARPA contractor MIT will present a low-power ultrawide-band radio, a digital baseband processor, and a piezoelectric energy-harvesting system that scavenges power from vibrations.

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Original URL

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb09/7747

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb09/7747