Academic teams from UC Berkeley and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University discover a key muscle that controls insect flight
In what could possibly be the creepiest, coolest thing you’ll read today, researchers from the Cyborg Insect Research department (of course you’d want to be a part of it) at UC Berkeley and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have learned how to steer giant flower beetles via a wireless backpack attached to the insect.
The critters measure about 6cm in length and weigh 8gms--a tad more than a 10-rupee coin. Using the specially-created strapped-on computers, the research teams have found that a muscle--the coleopteran third axillary sclerite (3Ax)--originally assumed to control only the folding of insect wings also happens to be central to in-flight steering. Armed with this newfound information, they were able to use the hardware augmented on the insects to wirelessly transmit signals to that muscle, enabling them to precisely steer the insect left and right using a wireless controller.
This breakthrough in using wireless sensors to study and control insect musculature opens new avenues for scientists to more accurately study the motion and dynamics of insects in flight, where in the past they needed to tether electrodes to the insects in a wired setup. “This is a demonstration of how tiny electronics can answer interesting, fundamental questions for the larger scientific community,” said Michel Maharbiz, an associate professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the study’s principal investigator. “Biologists trying to record and study flying insects typically had to do so with the subject tethered. It had been unclear if tethering interfered with the insect’s natural flight motions.”
The intrepid researchers put their findings to the test by stimulating that particular muscle during the insect’s flight, successfully causing it to make smooth, graded turns. The hi-tech backpacks consist of an off-the-shelf microcontroller and a built-in wireless receiver and transmitter. Six electrodes are connected to the beetle’s optic lobes and flight muscles, and the entire 1.5gm apparatus is powered by a 3.9-volt micro lithium battery. The researchers say there is still room for additional payload that the beetles can safely carry. “We could easily add a small microphone and thermal sensors for applications in search-and-rescue missions. With this technology, we could safely explore areas not accessible before, such as the small nooks and crevices in a collapsed building,” said study lead author Hirotaka Sato, an assistant professor at NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
It isn’t clear how receptive the beetles were to the electric flight control shock treatment though. They weren’t available for comment.
Photos by Tat Thang Vo Doan and Hirotaka Sato/NTU Singapore
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