Finally, remote control insects
Your dreams of commanding an unholy army of insectoid cyborgs may finally come true. Scientists at UC Berkeley showed off a remote-controlled Rhino beetle at a conference this week, demonstrating a mastery of electronic arthropod control by piloting the beetle around a room of creeped-out scientists like a William S. Burroughs RC plane.
To achieve such precision control, the scientists installed six electrodes into the beetle’s brain and muscles. They strapped a circuit board, radio receiver, and battery to its back and used a basic hobby RC controller to fly the bug.
Turns out the Rhino beetle is a great platform for this sort of thing. It can fly with up to 3 grams of cargo and is fairly robust and crash resistant.
The project is part of the DARPA Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS) project, thus future upgrades could include audio/video equipment for insectoid surveillance.