Scientists using giant beetles with radio transmitter 'backpacks' to control where they fly

Researchers from the Nanyang Technological Institute in Singapore, Malaysia have managed to control the flight paths of adult male M. torquata beetles by implanting electrodes into four of their flight muscles and controlling them with tiny backpacks. The insects have essentially been turned into'soft robots' by embedding them with artificial devices. Researchers in Malaysia have managed to control the flight paths of adult male M. torquata beetles by implanting electrodes into four of their flight muscles The researchers used electric pulses to steer them in different directions, and their acceleration could be increased by changing the frequency of the pulses. 'Instead of imitating the complicated kinetics and mechanisms of insect locomotion, a live insect can be directly transformed into a soft robot by embedding it with artificial devices,' the study, published in the Soft Robotics journal, explained. 'This is the first demonstration that insect motion can be steered in a desired direction in a consistent way,' Sawyer Fuller from the University of Washington in Seattle, who is not involved with the research, said to New Scientist.